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| Our way to celebrate 14 Feb 2015 - candy and working on clerk directory work. Very fun!! |
D&C
25:6, 13
And thou shalt go with him at
the time of his going,
and
be unto him for a scribe….Wherefore, lift up thy heart
and rejoice and
cleave unto the covenants which thou has made.
If you would
like to practice “becoming one” with your companion,
we would highly recommend going
on a Records Preservation Mission – where you have opportunity to be together at all
times and practice kindness, patience and love as you go through the tedious process of capturing
well-cropped and sharply-focused images for FamilySearch. We are greatly
enjoying this time together.
Elder Smith captured this image to “report” to FamilySearch that we were goofing off….
In truth, we were really “evaluating” a 2557 image book. To evaluate it, we spent .75 seconds on each image making sure there were no fingers showing, all edges were defined; and there were great histograms (white balance), focus, etc.
We noticed that so many certificates noted the cause of death
as “gripe” in the 1918 and 1919 books we captured (2373 and 2557 images), and discovered via the internet that there was a
worldwide influenza pandemic from 1918-1921. Valparaiso felt those effects….
A quote from Elder Sitati of the Seventy at a Las Vegas East Stake Conference:
"Home – where no one takes more attention than your companion: Religious freedom is shrinking. Evil is expanding…. There needs be a hastening of the work…. This has everything to do with what happens in your home. The power must come from your home being a holy place. A home where love is spoken – where you rejoice being there. Where no one takes more attention than your companion. This is part of hastening the work…. When the spirit is right – you will succeed….”
Sister Carleen Tanner teaches Institute classes in
Napa, Idaho. Her blog is www.carleentanner.com. Her marriage class last semester suggested as
homework to read “…one of the best self evaluation talks on marriage:
Agency and Love in Marriage by
Elder Lynn Robbins, Ensign, Oct 2000,
p16.” Agency
and Love in Marriage - Ensign Oct. 2000
Elder
Robbins at a marriage sealing said, “One couple has said to me, ‘We have fallen
out of love’…. I said to them, “Do you
fall out of kindness? No, you stop doing
kind things. Do you fall out of
love? No, you quit doing loving
things….” (We all know – and Sister Tanner has taught: “Through the power of the Atonement, we can
overcome ANY weakness in ANY area.)
Here
are a few notes from Sister Tanner’s class on “marriage”:
Heavenly
Father sent us to earth with different purposes.
Divine
purpose of men = Preside, Provide and Protect.
Divine
purpose of women = Nuture.
Gift
given to accomplish purpose to preside – Priesthood.
Gifts
given to accomplish purpose to provide – competitiveness, drive to be better,
logical and segmented thinking.
Gifts
given to accomplish purpose to protect – physical strength, keeping bad
influences out.
Gifts
given to accomplish purpose to nurture – strong emotions, empathy, inspiration,
charisma, service oriented, big picture, women’s intuition, sense of beauty,
high moral standard, femininity.
President
Howard W. Hunter
“I
suppose you would say it is a man’s viewpoint to
throw a burden upon a woman to maintain the stability and the sweetness of
marriage, but this seems to be her divine nature. She has a superior
spirituality in the marriage relationship, and the opportunity to encourage,
uplift, teach, and be the one who sets the example in the family for righteous
living. When women come to the point of realizing that it is more important to
be superior than to be equal, they will find the real joy in living those
principles that the Lord set out in his divine plan” ( Teachings of Howard W.
Hunter, 139).
Sis
Tanner taught, “[That superior spirituality] is to nurture your home and your
children. If you use that superiority
for any other purpose, you abuse it. If
you use it to criticize or try to preside in your home, it is amiss…. Do you
feel like that’s
a blessing or a burden?…When you use it correctly, you lift your spouse….”
The
Holy Ghost by Joseph Fielding McConkie
“…Women
are by their very nature more susceptible to revelation…It is natural for the
woman to give and be gentle and compassionate….It is for women to give
life. The father presides when the
family kneels to pray, but it is the mother that will teach them to pray.”
Salt
Lake Tribune October 1, 1970 quoting Elder Packer
“It
is interesting to know how a man is put together, how incomplete he is. His whole physical, emotional, and spiritual
nature depends on power found in woman.
He has found the other ½ of himself.
He will return again and again.
It strengthens him for what life has given him to transform a man into
an able and effective LDS priesthood holder….
There are 2 prerequisites. First,
she must want to….Second, she must know how….Part of knowing how includes the
genius of encouraging him to meet obligations without replacing him in his role…without
presiding over him.”
President Uchtdorf said, “I am reminded of a
story about a couple who had been married for 60 years. They had rarely argued
during that time, and their days together passed in happiness and contentment.
They shared everything and had no secrets between them—except one. The wife had
a box that she kept at the top of a sideboard, and she told her husband when
they were married that he should never look inside. As the decades passed, the moment came that
her husband took the box down and asked if he could finally know what it
contained. The wife consented, and he opened it to discover two doilies and
$25,000. When he asked his wife what this meant, she responded, “When we were
married, my mother told me that whenever I was angry with you or whenever you
said or did something I didn’t like, I should knit a small doily and then talk
things through with you.” The husband
was moved to tears by this sweet story. He marveled that during 60 years of
marriage he had only disturbed his wife enough for her to knit two doilies.
Feeling extremely good about himself, he took his wife’s hand and said, “That
explains the doilies, but what about the $25,000?” His wife smiled sweetly and said, “That’s the
money I got from selling all the doilies I’ve knitted over the years…. Not only does this story teach an interesting way to deal with disagreements in marriage, but it also illustrates the folly of jumping to conclusions based on limited information. So often the “truths” we tell ourselves are merely fragments of the truth, and sometimes they’re not really the truth at all.” CES Devotional, President Uchtdorf, 8/12 “What is Truth”
Sister Tanner taught, “Women need to know
how to take your gifts you have been given and focus those gifts on helping
your spouse magnify his divine responsibility.
And men are responsible to help women develop her responsibility to
nuture….We are always going to find a way to
be offended – don’t…criticize…or belittle…. When you come and bring the gifts each
of you has – you create a whole, a one, a complete, a perfect union….
“How we help each other is
different. Heavenly Father gave men the
3 P’s. I’m going to give
you the 4 A’s. This is how you magnify their P’s. If you can
master the 4 A’s, they will master their P’s.”
4 A’s = Admire, Appreciate, Affection and Acceptance
Admire him to help him preside –
1. Allow him to preside.
2. Ask his opinion.
3. Ask for priesthood blessings.
4. Go to the temple with him.
5. Tell him how grateful you are to be at his
side.
Appreciate him to
help him provide –
1. Stop griping.
2. Be mindful of budget.
3. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do
without.
4. If he wants to buy something for himself –
help it happen.
5. Tell him often you appreciate the sacrifices
he makes.
Use Affection and Acceptance to help
him protect –
Affection: Let him know he is needed. Pat his shoulder, give him a kiss, touch and
love him.
Acceptance: Be loyal. (No eye-rolling when your partner
speaks….) “Forget who you thought you
married and fall in love with who you married.”
Pres. Hinckley.
Sister Tanner
taught, “These are your responsibilities no matter where your husband is right
now. Let him and his weaknesses be
between him and the Lord….”
Men, Remember:
Nuture her to
help her nuture –
1. Listen to her.
2. Don’t give an answer.
3. Express love often.
4. Help her feel cherished.
President Henry B. Eyring at the Colloquium on the
Complementarity of Man and Woman at the Vatican,
November 18, 2014.
His speech "To Become as
One," was largely personal, detailing
how his marital union has shaped his views of the institution. …
"We grew together into one — slowly
lifting and shaping each
other, year by year….As we absorbed strength from each other, it
did not
diminish our personal gifts."
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