This week in class we continued on our adventures of talking about finding spouses and well also married life. It is really interesting to me how often we can see that people are often doing different things to help marriages but in reality it is hindering the marriage. For example we have people that cohabitate to live together before marriage, which many studies have shown is actually a lot worse for the couple for many reasons. One they get used to escape routes, two their loyalty and fidelity aren’t as strong, three rates of violence increase and so much more. We also talked about a very interesting fact that marital satisfaction actually goes down with children. Isn’t that crazy to think about?! No matter where you are in life it goes down with all the new changes. Now it does level off as kids stop comin but with each kid it goes down but neat and strange things is that when they start to leave it starts going back up. Interesting but very true. The time spent with a spouse opens up the focus is less on the children and now more on the spouse again and there is more time to manage and let the other person know how much you care but word AND deed now that they are gone. It is neat though because even though this is true I wonder on if you were to measure the amount of knowledge and experience that was being learned during those times and I would hypothesis that you would find an increase level of learning and understanding about many things and virtues that follow along with being in a family. Because up to that point we mostly just focus on ourselves and maybe one or two other people but in a family there are a lot more to watch out for during those times. It was nice to see also that I wasn’t the only one worried about family and finances and stuff along those lines… but at the same time how do you balance all of it and when does it make the time right to follow Heavenly Fathers council… interesting and still thinking so I will leave you with that thought this week and more next week to come! J

What an amazing week this has proven to be here in our marriage and family relations class. I really don’t know where to start as we talked about something that has really been hitting home with me. Dating courting marriage and things along those lines. It is interesting how this book was written to show us first the importance of getting involved keeping people’s sexuality in order, the how important it is to get involved or date and then fall in love with someone before finally it starts talking about how you select a life partner. I admit when I started this class I was wondering what sort of things I could gain for my personal career. Now that I have been blessed to have been in this class and am in reality learning little things that could help in my job. The biggest thing is how much of a blessing it is and that I am coming to realize it is to be able to use this in the most important decision in my life… in all eternity. It has helped answer so many different questions of how and what and when and why different things have happened and a better understanding of the human nature. I mean why is it that we react to different people but slowly start to lose interest, yet with other people we never lose that or that initial awe and feeling of friendship. I have often wondered why it was that so many people feel like they are in love or even know what love is and that they are in love. Are they sure it’s not just a fling but a real thing. I know that even though we can’t give exact reasons or specifications on what love is I feel that after learning about how we react with a person and reading and better understanding of what kind of feelings we get for different situations allow us to at least have a better idea of what to watch out for. As Brother Williams said we probably understand love better than anyone else on campus. Even though I feel like there is a lot still for me to learn I do believe that is true. Never really before have I realized that often situation or things a person does is what we might love. That being in situations can arouse our feelings not just the person. For example we talked about a study were people were asked how attractive the person next to them was before and after. The research showed that for the most part they would rate them more attractive after because of the feeling and exhilarating feeling of the roller coaster. Crazy to think of but a true study, so for me it shows that we need to evaluate situations where we feel in love us a thing call the RAM (Relationship Attachment Model). This is a model where we look at different things starting from how we know so much and then move up  to trust and then rely and then commitment and then touch. With these things we want to slowly move each up and then we can tell how much of an attachment there is… and this is only one of the many tools were talked about that help us better understand not only what love is but how much we are in love. Actually answering a lot of questions that I have been having more and more and I am so grateful the lord has placed me in this class! I know everything that happens, happens for a reason and this is really nice lessons for eternity. I truly feel blessed. 

The great thing about this week was learning about how important different genders play in life. Learning about the strengths of each gender and the benefit of what each brings to our lives. It was interesting learning and talking about how when we change having both genders to support a family. This was interesting to see all the different opinions we had as well. Talking about where homosexual attractions came from and where they began. It was interesting how little things like over reacting or worrying about if your child is gay and then enforcing ways to make them not that way, it actually could end up causing them to become more of that way. It could stress family relations between other members of the family. It really was interesting to talk about the different ways we could help people see the importance. For example think if your son was playing with barbie's than as a father you could play with him for a little but make sure that he plays the Ken doll. This giving him opportunity to develop the different male tendencies and interests. What was neat to me was that I came to realize all these different ways to avoid these kind of reactions was actually opposite of what I thought would help. It also helped to talk about it in class and see other peoples opinion and why they thought the way they did. By the end of the week I have really come to see a better understanding not only about the importance of gender but what each has to offer in a relationship. It is amazing to me how Heavenly Father has planned it out in a such a beautiful relation and why it is ordained of God.

Often times in the scriptures we see places where Christ teaches us that we are not supposed to judge for various reasons. Well this week in class we talked a lot about first what kinds of problems different economic families around the nation have and how that correlates to their family life. We also studied how even different cultures and ethnicities effect family relations. This really hit me hard because I have always been one that tried to overcome culture boundaries and see everyone as equals. This helped me realize though that even if we view everyone as equals we can still can recognize were they came from. With that though we need to make sure that we choose the things that mean the most and act on those and change those that are not in line with what we believe. For example my good friend Kenny got married this week his wife Heidi. Now Kenny is Polynesian and Heidi isn’t. That allows for Heidi to learn a little bit more of the culture that comes with that. Learning different things of respect and importance of family, not that she didn’t know it before but will be able to see it in a different light. I do have to admit from what I have learned from different cultures and especially watching interactions with family has really taught me different lessons of what truly brings happiness in families. It may not be an easy road but if we are willing to learn and grow. I believe that is how we can glean from different cultures the things that we are impressed by and apply it in our own life. This might seem strange but I believe that we can learn from each other and truly do believe that this is one way we can do that from. I love this Gospel and learning about families and thinking about them in a temporal things but also to ponder on the eternal truths and family as well. Families are meant to be together forever anyway!