This video by Robert D. Hales is very good at explaining what we know about the eternal family. I love this because you can truly feel the spirit that Elder Robert D. Hales has and he has a testimony of having an eternal family.
I am going to add my testimony to Elder Robert D. Hales that I know that we will be with our families for eternity if we are sealed in the holy temple. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I had about a month to be married and sealed in the holy temple for all time and eternity. I am so thankful for the knowledge that I have to know that I will be with my family forever.
I am so thankful for this knowledge and throughout this my testimony has grown immensely and I know that in the temple we take very important covenants that will affect us for the rest of our lives
I felt that it would be appropriate to start out with the proclamation to the family. I have never read through it and really pondered it until we were asked to for this class, there are so many new things that stuck out to me especially just being married and starting a family of my own. This document was written specially for us. We need to remember that our prophet does not just write things for fun, they will benefit us in some way.
The Home: A Refuge and Sanctuary
This is a talk that his entitled "The Home: A Refuge and Sanctuary" This is a very good talk, I feel that he tells us ways that we can make our home more spiritually uplifted and things that we need to watch for and try to avoid.
I really like this video about the proclamation and the importance of building our eternal home.
This is my family and I know that by following the words of our beloved prophet Gordon B. Hinckley I will be with my family forever! I love them and am so happy to have them in my life. I am so thankful to have the knowledge that I do so that I can be with them forever.
This is my husband and I, we are excited to start our own little family and raise our children strong in the gospel! I am so thankful that I have found the one who truly does treat me like a princess!
Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.
I personally feel that this could be many different things, depending on what you and your family like to do. For my family we like to ride horses so for us we go to the mountains and go fishing, hunting and ride horses, For some that may not be what they like to do with their time, I feel that it depends on what interests you and your family!
This is a picture of my family and I driving cows in the mountains. We all love this so much! Think we have enough cowboys and cowgirls? ;)
Our prophet Thomas S. Monson tells us how we can build eternal homes, I thought that there were very good points in this to help us decide what we feel is wholesome recreational activities.
In closing of this section, I feel that we live in a world with great opportunities to find wholesome activities it just depends what we are looking for and where we are looking. In the book it says " Wholesome recreation can serve to promote positive development in our children, strengthen our marriages, and build strong families."
My family is very big on working hard. Work is just part of our daily tasks, we live on a ranch in Southern Colorado and are expected to have our chores and projects completed daily. When I was younger I complained about having to do chores most of the time, but since I am the oldest some of the time I actually enjoyed helping my dad and mom. I was in the 4-H Club for 9 years of my life I showed steers for 4 years, pigs for 3 and horses for 9 years. I loved it but it did require very hard work. We were expected to feed, water, and exercise our animals daily. This was very hard work, but it taught me the importance of hard work. My dad always says that being a hard worker can get you farther in life than most college degrees. That does not mean that he doesn't think we should not get a college degree, he strongly wants us to, he just know that it doesn't matter how smart we are as long as we are working and studying hard we will get good grades and go far in life.
I found this video on YouTube, I feel that we do need to work hard, but we also need to have fun working hard and it will pay off!
This is also another video that I found, this is more of the spiritual side to it. I know that we are supposed to work hard to spread the gospel even if at times it is discouraging.
An eighteen-year-old boy writes, “Since I can remember, I have been taught the value of hard work and honoring all of your responsibilities and your family name. As I look back to my experience in family projects, I can see how they have shaped my character and personality by letting me make many important decisions. I have gained confidence by meeting new people and am better able to express myself. But the most important thing about family work projects is that your family comes closer together in love and respect.”
I feel that parents need to work hard to be examples to their childrens. I have found a few more videos about hard work, I know that I am sharing a lot of videos but there are many good ones on this topic.
I'm a Mormon, Cowboy at Heart, and Father of Five
(I had to add this one because I LOVE horses!!)
This is a great video dealing with this topic. I feel that there are many people in our generation that are getting lazy and feel as if they do not need to work. I feel that with work we need to be charitable and look for opportunities to serve those who are working hard.
I am going to start by telling a personal experience. I got the amazing opportunity to go through the temple about 3 weeks ago and how amazing it is there. I had always hear how the temple is amazing and I could not wait until that special day when I got to go inside. I was so happy and the feeling that I got as I walked through those doors was overwhelming happiness and excitement. I was walking into God's house to marry my best friend. What more could I ask for? I know that being worth to enter in to the temple is very important and I am so happy that i was because what a special and comforting place it is.
I know that without the gospel I would be lost and into some things that would cause great sadness in my life. I know that now as I am starting my own life and have my own house I want my house to be a house of prayer and a faithful house that when a member of my family or I am having a bad day my house can be a house of refuge and a place where we can feel safe. I want my house to have the spirit and I know that if we continue to pray and do what we are supposed to we will establish a house like that.
President Boyd K. Packer says: "It is a great challenge to raise a family in the darkening mists of our moral environment." I know that there are great challenges that await my future children, but I know that if they cleave to the gospel their challenges will be easier to deal with.
We that have been through the temple know that we make special ordinances and if those are broken we need and have to repent to return to live with our heavenly father. I learned so much as I went through the temple and I know that those things that happen in the temple are very sacred and they are very dear to my heart.
Boyd K. Packer emphasized the binding power of the sealing ordinance in a 2008 Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting: Now sometimes there are those that are lost. We have the promise of the prophets that they are not lost permanently, that if they are sealing in the temple ordinances and if the covenants are kept by the parents, in due time, after all the correction that's necessary to be given, that they will not be lost.
I know this to be true, I have members of my family have been through a lot with other members of our family and they have forgiven one another and I can sense the peace and the spirit that each family member brings, this does not mean that it will not be hard, I know that there will be very hard trials that each family member will face while forgiving one another, but if we do we set ourselves up for even more blessings.
WHY SHOULD WE REPENT AND FORGIVE?
"Mental health experts acknowledge that it is impossible to address emotional and physical well-being without considering the relevance of repentance and forgiveness. Likewise, the words of ancient and modern prophets affirm that repentance and forgiveness are central to the gospel plan." As I was looking for something that related to repentance and forgiveness I remembered a conference talk that was given by President Boyd K. Packer. "Cleansing the Inner Vessel" This is very true, we need to repent so that we are more likely to forgive others, make sure to watch this amazing video.
1) Recall the hurt-We not need to deny the pain, we need to be clear of what we did wrong.
2) Empathize- It is important to understand the transgressors feelings
3) Offer the altruistic gift of forgiveness- the victim needs to be humble by their wrongdoings
4) Commit Publicly to Forgive- we need to verbalize our forgiveness to another person
5) Hold on to Forgiveness- We need to remember to move forward, and we also need to repeat
For some months, I’ve tried to emphasize repentance, one of the most vital and merciful doctrines of the kingdom. It is too... )—how can we do so, except each of us employs repentance as the regular means of personal progression? Personal repentance is part of taking up the cross daily.-Neal A. Maxwell
A married woman of 33 years said "It's important to build a good relationship with your spouse so that when the children leave, you have the underlying joy of focusing on each other and not your adult children."
I know that talking to many couples that have had older children leave the house, they have said that it is hard to know what to do after a while, because you are use to waiting on your children hand and foot. They also say that it is hard to get use to having nothing to do except relax and pamper yourself, until the grandkids come! ;)
Retirement: "People need to prepare emotionally for retirement", advises one who has experienced this stage of life. "People planning to retire need to retire to something." not just from something, because "adjusting to less money and being home all the time is a real change."
I know that this can be a real challenge to us, my grandma when she retired served a mission in Siberia Russia, and then was busy watching her grandkids, so she had no time to sit and be bored. I feel that that is the way that it should be, we need to keep ourselves busy.
I really love this, because I feel that my parents did a very good job at this. We knew what we were supposed to do and we knew what happened if we did not or we did something that was bad I am so thankful for that. I know that sometimes parents give their children so many rules that they cannot wait to go to college so they can do what they want. At college I knew what my parents expected and I did not want to disappoint them. This is how I feel that it should be. I was never sneaky behind my parents back, because the couple times that I did try I broke down and told my parents. I hope that someday I can be the type of parents that mine are!
Nelson says, "The family proclamation makes clear that Heavenly Father expects parents to have significant influence in the lives of their children. God's plan for His children may be ideally characterized as the placement of children into homes where parents are committed to their development and proclamation principles are practiced. No other arrangement is as effective, as demonstrated by the First Presidency's call to parents ... 'to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the Church. The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its essential functions in carrying forward this God-given responsibility...'"
In this chapter, Nelson talks about parenting styles vs practices and it's great to be able to see the difference.This chapter really helps me, because even though I do not have kids I can learn the things that i need to do to become a good mother. I will do the best that I can to be a mother that is pleasing unto our Heavenly Father. I want to have traits like our Savior to be the best mother that I possibly can be.
A study was done that explored the United States versus other countries with data collected on 18,000 adults in 17 nations. The results offer strong evidence to date in support of the relationship between marital status and happiness. In 16 of the 17 countries, the married people were happier than their single counterparts. They also found that cohabitation, instead of marriage, was associated with less chances of happiness, health, and financial security. All of these studies showed clear evidence that marriage is essential to true happiness and joy. (Successful Marriages & Family)
Movies, more often than not, portray sterile married couples desperate to break free of constraints; Internet confessions boast of the marital liberation; and influential writers like Elizabeth Gilbert offer destructive praise for the institution in their bestsellers. In Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert's journey begins with the emotional escape from marriage and husband, while her latest bestseller, Committed spends most of its pages excoriating the institution that throughout history, she claims, has destroyed women's freedom.
Under, "The Benefits", section of this chapter, it is quoted . . . "'Marriage is sexless, boring, and oppressive,' declares the headline of a blogger who goes on to declare that marriage is failing people as an institution (marcotte, 2009, p.i)."
As for being unfulfilled and stifled, married people are generally happier, the studies find, with greater life satisfaction, lower risk for depression, and greater economic stability, all contributing to better mental health. (Scott 2009; Stack & Eshleman, 1998; Wood Goesling & Avellar, 2007)
Now I want you to ask yourself a question, What makes a good marriage?
According to Gottieb's diverse assortment of experts they said that it is distinguishing "needs" from "wants." I know that if there is something that I just want it usually a lot more worldly and is less important.
Married couples, even those with lower incomes, report greater financial security and, as a result, have greater access to better housing, food, and services like health care than the never-married, divorced, or widowed. (Stack & Eshleman 1998)
"A lasting marriage is the reward, usually of hard work and self sacrifice. We recognize that it is something of great worth, but we are increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice to get there" (Flanagan)
"Neverless, most couples today choose to 'test-drive' their relationship by living together before choosing to marry. Young men and women usually move in together without understanding the realities of premarital cohabitation. Couples who live together before marriage have higher rates of divorce and lower levels of marital quality. They report more negative communication in their marriages and have lower levels of marital satisfaction than married couples who did not live together." (Jose, O'Leary& Moyer 2010)
President Ezra Taft Benson once said, "The plaguing sin of this generation is sexual immorality. This, the Prophet Joseph said, would be the source of more temptations, more buffetings, more difficulties for the elders of Israel than any other."
I stand with the Prophet Joseph on this, I feel that immorality is becoming more and more accepted. I feel that as members of the church we are fortunate because most know our standards and help us follow them. I know that in high school I was not tested with that because everyone knew my standards and knew that I would not budge on them.
Pornography
When people view pornography, it is likely done without feeling of love, delight, generosity, consideration, sympathy, and kindness. The end result is a state of numbness, isolation, and loneliness. - Elder Maxwell
Instant Gratification and Instant Solutions
Over time, consumers of pornography are conditioned to believe that they are entitled to instant sexual gratification. This runs counter to the Christlike attributes of persuasion, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned, and kindness.
Some of the time when times are stressful, pornography can be a "quick fix" but it only allows temporary happiness at best.
Steps to Repairing Marriage after Infidelity
Step #1 Rebuild Trust
Becoming Accountable, taking responsibility for your actions
Establishing Boundaries, to rebuild trust there will have to be boundaries set.
Rebuilding the Trust Bank Account, Rebuilding trust takes time, and progress typically is made only in small steps. Trust is often like a bank account, at the beginning of the marriage the bank account is full, but if infidelity occurs the bank account is wiped out. The bank account will need to be rebuilt by making large and small deposits repeatedly over a period of time.
Step # 2 Gain Perspective
The next step is for both partners to understand how the infidelity came about, exploring aspects of the marriage that made it more susceptible to infidelity. Gaining a better perspective also includes realizing that one person is not responsible for the sins of another.
Step #3 Repentance and Forgiveness
Confession- We need to be humble enough to confess and want help for our sins.
Forsaking Sin- Elder Scott says: "Decide to stop what you are doing that is wrong. Then search out everything in your life that feeds the habit, such as negative thoughts, unwholesome environments, and you companions in mischief."
Finding Forgiveness- "He that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive" (D&C 42:25) President Kimball says, "In the matter of sexual sin and adultery... repentance is sufficiently all-out and total."
Forgiving an Unfaithful Spouse- Forgiveness is difficult because it requires letting go of the role of victim and its benefits. But while vengeance may feel satisfying in the short run, it will keep the injured spouse stuck in the past. We need to forgive them, and realize that they repented and it is remembered no more.
Step #4 Overcoming Addiction
When infidelity has occurred in the form of a visual affair, it is important to realize that it is not simply a bad habit, but more similar to an illness. Many times counseling by a professional may be needed.
Step #5 Making the Choice to Stay Together
When a couple chooses to stay together, Snyder and colleagues emphasize that this means the choice is also being made to commit to, strengthen, and maintain the relationship. They offer these suggestions about moving on together.
Healing the Past, discussing hard feelings to each other in a caring way may be the most critical step for hurt feelings to be healed.
Strengthening the Present, instead of trying to get back to where they were, a couple should focus on making the most of where they are. They should make efforts to reduce conflict and create opportunities for intimacy and joy.
Enriching the Future, Couples should discuss their dreams of moving forward together and what they are willing to do to make those dreams a reality.
All of these quotes and information was taken out of the book. "Successful Marriages and Families."
