This week the one thing that really caught my attention was the discussion about children of divorced parents and their chance of divorce in their own marriages. I have a friend who is really close to me, whose parents went through a divorce when he was younger. He is also a convert to the church. We talked all about it after class, I asked him his views on marriage and such. He told me that before he joined the church he did not think he'd ever get married. He said he thought that all marriages just ended in divorce and unhappiness. Once he joined the church and learned more about how the lord views marriage his opinions changed. I asked him how confident he felt his marriage would succeed. Although it was significantly higher now that he's a member, it was still quite a bit lower than mine. (I have never been faced with any kind of divorce in my life) It was so interesting to take something I learned in class and talk to a friend about it. I let him know that it by NO MEANS means he will get a divorce and that everyone has the opportunity to change things their parents did for a better future for their children.

Budgets are such a good idea. I took money management a couple years ago, but never put my knowledge into practice. While on a mission I really learned the importance of budgeting.My companion and I would sit down once a month (usually really close to the beginning) and take all of our money and deciding TOGETHER where every cent needs to go. We had multiple envelopes, with labels such as rent, food, utilities..etc. We would talk and counsel together where we thought we should put all the money. We made sure to only buy what we needed and not too much of things we wanted. We were living in Latvia, it was one of the most expensive countries to live in in my mission. at the end of the transfer we found out that we had a whole bunch of money left over just because we budgeted. But the budgeting did more than just save us money, it brought us closer together in unity. We worked very well together. It taught me a valuable lesson about how much of an impact budgeting has on a relationship. It was fun to read over the church's pamphlet and teach it to a class mate.

What is the purpose of parenting? I said it was to be able to raise loving, righteous, capable children who will build up society and who will be able to raise children of their own who will do the same. I also really liked the examples that were shared in the class. To protect, and help our children to survive in this world and the eternities.

I had never heard the quote by Orson F. Whitney talking about the sealing power and you children being with you in the eternities. How comforting is it to know as long as my husband and I keep to our temple covenants, our children will always be with us. I was actually wondering about this exact thing a while back. I knew that if you were sealed and lived faithful to your covenants then your children would be sealed to you... but then if your children didn't then they would be lost. That just didn't seem right to me, What would be the purpose of the sealing power if it didn't work. I know that everyone is entitled to agency and can choose for themselves whether or not they are willing to live righteously they will have to suffer for their own choices.

I learned that power is the ability to influence how people feel, think and act. I don't think it's a healthy thing to have power in a relationship. My uncle on my moms side had a lot of power over both my grandmother and my grandfather. It did not end well. There were many conflicts.

I LOVED our discussion on counsel with councils. Growing up in my family, I never once remember having a family meeting. It was pretty much my parents made decisions and we had to follow them or we were grounded. The first presidency and quorum of the twelve apostles are a great example to us. I started opening my eyes, looking out for little things before meetings and I noticed a lot! Just before devotional starts, president clark, and the speaker come out about 10 minutes early and greet each of the people on the stand, with kind handshakes and loving hugs. It's their way of showing their love. It is a great example to me.  I love the idea of talking to each member of the family and asking them how their week went and what can the rest of the family do to support them. I think that would be a great way during family home evening each week to strengthen the family.

I use to think to myself quite often "Why me?", "Why now?", "Why this?". I never understood why we were given hard things to deal with. The more trials I get, the more I realize how important they are for our progression here on earth. I feel that they are a way for us to reach out to our Heavenly Father. It gives us the opportunity to summit ourselves into the hands of God, and allow his will to be ours.

I don't get angry that often, I always questioned what the motives were for other people. Learning that people who are angry usually have an underlying emotion made a lot of sense to me. People just don't know how to show, or recognize their feelings so it just comes out as anger. We should be able to talk through things and help our friends figure out exactly what emotions they are feeling.

I was amazed in class when Brother Williams talked about your spirit being hurt after abuse. I had a companion on my mission who had had some major trials in her life, as we were talking she mentioned the same exact thing. She mentioned that your spirit can be hurt. It can be healed through the atonement of Jesus Christ. She also mentioned that your soul knows how to fix it. That it takes time, and sometimes help from other sources. It was fascinating.

I loved how we talked about sex as a means to bring a couple closer together. The world teaches you if you love someone, you should demonstrate that love by having sex. Once I joined the church I learned that is not true, but then I was confused as to what purpose sex had. I knew of course it was to procreate. It was cool to learn about how it's one of the strongest ways to bring your relationship closer together. That may be one reasons it's not good to do before you are married. It reminds me of that chart. Your touch can not be above your know. You don't want to rely and trust someone you don't know. When you have physical intimacy you can create emotional bonds that are not supposed to be there before you are married. I've always been worried about how much information I am required to disclose to my future spouse. I had always thought that once you are baptized everything from your past is erased in the eyes of the Savior, so why should anyone have to know. I was surprised while in class when we talked about being honest. I never had thought about it before. Then after talking to a really good friend I realized how important it was to him to know everything about his wife before he marries her, I realized my future spouse may feel the same way.

Weddings

Woah, I knew weddings were expensive, but I had no idea how expensive they can be. $21,000 for a California wedding. I won't be having one of those. I loved when brother Williams said, "The way you start your marriage is the way you'll end it. If you start it well, then it doesn't have to end." I completely agree with it. My parents were engaged for a year before they got married. I believe they dated for maybe 5 months. They always told us kids, we couldn't get married fast, that we'd have to be engaged for a year. After coming to BYU-Idaho, I learned this isn't the best thing to do. We are taught to have long courtships and short engagements. I think that the best way to do things. Temptation is much greater once the ring goes on the finger, and you know you'll be with that person for eternity. Satan's main purpose is to bring others down with him. He is attacking the family. One of the ways he can do that is by tempting people so that they may not be worthy to enter into the temple and create an eternal family. My parents are right about a lot of things, but I would have to disagree with them on this one issue.

Dating

I had never really had a definition to a date. I was always puzzled by the thought.. "Is this a date? or Was that a date?" I never knew unless a guy specifically said "Would you like to go on a DATE?" and used the word date! Now every time I am asked out I think to myself, are we paired off?, Is it planned out? and is it paid for? If the answer is yes to all three of those questions I know it was a date. All the confusion was then cleared up. I also LOVED learning about the KnowQuo. 1. Time 2. Togetherness 3. Talk I truly believe that is the way to get to know someone. All dating really is is practice. We are in a state in which we are preparing to be married. We date so that we gain experience and find what we want and don't want in a spouse. It only makes sense then to only date guys you could see yourself marrying, and NOT to date guys you could never see yourself marrying. As we date we develop important skills. Skills that will be beneficial, if not necessary in marriage. I found it interesting that once you're married every single thing you own then becomes "ours" it's not longer mine, or yours.. it's ours. OUR house, OUR kids, OUR car, OUR job, OUR friends. It reminds me of the scripture that speaks of leaving the parents and becoming one. I love it! 

Wow this was a very intense week. To be honest, I never really knew my view on homosexual relationships and what the source is. I was raised catholic, and was always taught that it was a choice. Growing up, one of my mothers brothers "came out of the closet". My parents didn't want us to have anything to do with him, so  all communication with him was cut off. Then as I reached high school, I had a couple friends who were homosexual and it seemed like they always said they were born like that. I was so confused as to what I believed. I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't know if people were born like it, or whether or not it was a choice. After talking about it in class I came to realize it's a trial. Everyone has different temptations. For some this may be it. I also learned that things such as sexual abuse or a lack of a parental figure may spark something. I always knew my friends were good people. Even though they were making such choices in their lives, I never thought they were evil, like my parents had always taught us. How grateful I am for the Gospel and the knowledge it brings. We know who we are. Sons and daughters of a righteous king. We know that our genders were around even in the premortal world. Gender is not an earthly thing, it's eternal. Thanks to the proclamation to the world, we know such truths.

Immigrants

Many new things stood out to me while watching the demonstration we had in class. I always feel like our demonstrations bring situations to life. I thought about the people I knew in my life who had gone through the same type of situation. I thought about my best friend Indy. Her father left their country when she was still very young to work his way to america. After many years he had made it and earned enough money to send for his whole family to join him. I saw similar patterns take place in their family that we saw in class. Without the father present, the oldest daughter, Indy, took the responsible role and had to distribute responsibilities, coming off quite bossy. Even after they reunited with their father, Indy still kept these tendencies. It even seemed like her mom and dad came to her for advice. 

When they first immigrated I found that their parents mingled with others from their country who also migrated over. This way, even though they were in a new country they still had things that were familiar. They could speak their language, and eat their food.   

I feel that I have a much better understanding of why roles are the way they are. Each role in a family is important and if one is lacking others will need to fill the role, taking on more than one role. 

When roles change, everyone in the family is effected and even if the person absent returns, things are still different. I have noticed this with my own family. By choosing to become a member of the church, things changed drastically in my family. I feel that our relationship can be straightened, but I don't feel like it would ever be the same. 

This week I mapped my own family. It was interesting to have a visual of our relationships instead of just being in them. I feel I have a much better understanding of where we stand. There were many sub systems within my family. Different siblings have different relationships with each other. Once you can discover the relationship, I feel it's much easier to help strengthen it. For the last year and a half, I've been on my mission and haven't had much contact with my family. Coming back home I realized I don't know them at all. Espeically after mapping them out, I noticed changes need to happen in order to bring us closer together. 

While we were discussing Family rules we each have in our own families, I knew we had some, I couldn't recognize them. I found that it was a lot easier to recognize them in other families. Thanuja and I have known each other for over 10 years. I found that I could spot rules for her family because they were so different than my family. Even since class, I've been pondering on different rules my family has had.