Week Five FF

We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. 

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

Well everyone this is officially my last blog post for the semester and I just have to say that I have loved learning about the Family: A Proclamation to the World. What a blessing it is for us to have this wonderful document to refer back to and to be able to learn and understand the importance of having an eternal family and raising our families in the Gospel. Although I am not a mother yet, I have realized that the responsibilities of a mother are duties that God has blessed me with and trusts me with. The fact that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have faith in me to one day become a mom is always a shock and excitement. As I reflect on these last two paragraphs (I missed a paragraph on accident...ooops) I learn that any sin we make or any obligation we fail to progress in, in the last days we must stand before God and like it says, we will stand accountable for everything we have done while on this Earth. Now I don't know about you, but this scares me. I don't want to have to stand before God and look back on my life and wish that I had done better. I want to be the best I can right now and that isn't just regarding children. I want to be the best mother, the best wife, the best sister, the best teacher, and the best friend. I want to be able to look back on my life and say, "I did everything that I could and I am happy with what I did." No regrets when we get to the gates of heaven. No set backs. No wishing and hoping. Everything must happen through the guidance and teachings of the Gospel. 

Once again I have loved taking this class this semester. It has definitely opened my eyes to exactly what I need to do in order to progress towards becoming more like Christ and perfecting myself towards salvation and I want nothing more than to be able to see the lights of heaven and know that I did my best in progressing towards exaltation. 

Week Four FF

The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God's commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God's eternal plan.

I don't really know where to start with this one because I feel like this one has a lot of writing on it when it comes to what just happened a couple of weeks ago with each state legalizing same sex marriage. Now I want to start out by saying that I don't in any way, shape, or form have anything against same sex marriage because #1-everyone is entitled to marry who they want and #2-I know many people that are "gay" and I love them just as much as anyone else.

In my seven months of marriage, I have learned a great deal about the importance of marriage and I have a firm believe that marriage is a sacred thing that happens between a man, a woman, and God. It is something that we have been blessed with and we all have the opportunity to make it happen while we are on this earth. God has given us the agency to perform this sacred ordinance and it gives us the chance to be sealed to our eternal companions for all our lives and beyond. We have the chance to bring children into this world and what a better blessing to have than to have our own children be a part of this world. We have the great power to bring them into this world, which is a blessing in itself.

This post is very short, but it is quite meaningful to me and I am so grateful that I am married to my eternal companion, my other half, and the love of my life because I would not want to have children with anyone other than him.

Week Three FF

In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.

If I start from the beginning of this paragraph, I like to look at the phrase, "spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan." Before we all decided to come to this earth, we had a choice that had to be made. We were given the chance to either accept Christ's plan and come to earth to spread the Gospel or accept Satan's plan and follow him in the 'underworld.' If we accept Christ's plan, we receive a body. If we accept Satan's plan, we don't receive a body. At this point, the first thing that I can think of is how smart we all were to accept Christ's plan. It makes me feel so grateful for Christ and the trust and power that He has in all of us because He gave us the choice of deciding what we wanted to do and He knew what we were going to choose. All I can think of is what a blessing it is for us that we chose to come to this earth to obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience. That is the whole reason why we are here (besides to create a family), we are here to experience everything that both Christ and the adversary throw at us. It is a part of Christ's plan and He knows that all will be fulfilled. 

As we obtain our physical bodies, we then have the opportunity to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize (our) divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. We have the chance to live with Christ again. He is giving us full access to come back to Him and this life is the ultimate test. We are put here on this earth to not only learn about and spread the Gospel, but to also overcome anything and everything that the adversary has to push towards us. Pushing through our trials and becoming more like Christ is what brings us toward that perfection. Although we will never experience that perfection while we are here on this earth, it is a blessing unto us that we strive to become as perfect as God wants us to be. We all have an ultimate destiny that can be met through the power of Christ's Gospel. We can grow to become heirs of eternal life and through that growth can we return back to our Heavenly Father. 

The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave is my favorite phrase from this paragraph because where would I be without my family? Where would any of us be without our families and the fact that we can actually be with them for TIME AND ALL ETERNITY is just a blessing in and of itself. I look at others that are not married in the temple and even though I don't know their story, there is always a little bit of sadness that I can't help but to express for them because the blessings of being sealed in the temple are what makes us able to live with our families forever. The knowledge that we have of knowing that our families will live together even after we die is so heart-warming and motivating that we can't do nothing but strive to be sealed in the temple.

Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally. I kind of starting talking about this in the last paragraph, but temples are powerful holy buildings that are dedicated to performing these sacred ordinances. All I can say is that we should all strive to become worthy enough to enter the temple because the only thing I will say about the temple is that there is no other place I would rather be in than to be in God's holy and sacred house to perform these sacred doings that provide blessings upon blessings.

Week Two of FF

This week in my Family Foundations class, we have been focusing on the second paragraph of The Family, which states, "All human beings-male and female- are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." What got me thinking about this paragraph was how incredible it is to know that each of us was given a 'divine destiny, identity, and purpose' to create and fu-fill while on this earth. I keep trying to figure out what I am supposed to be doing here and why and I think that is something that we all won't completely understand or figure out until we leave this earth. God has created us for a specific reason and we are supposed to figure out what that reason is in order to accomplish what we are asked to accomplish. That is kind of the fun of it I think; like the Prophets and scriptures say, we have a divine potential and that divine potential is going to bless us if we use it the right way. 

As the week continued on we started getting into the subject of gender roles and why God created males and females and as I was continuing to write on the discussion boards, I came across someone that had written something about same sex marriage. Now I am not going to say anything about whether I approve or not, because that isn't the point of this post and it isn't my business to judge someone's use of agency the way they want to; the point is to let everyone and myself know that God created everyone for a reason, despite of where they came from and where they are going, God created each of us in HIS OWN IMAGE. He took traits from himself and our Heavenly Mother and mixed them together:) to make someone that He knew was going to make a difference (in some way) to the world and the people around them. God has made it so that we can do anything and that we have the power to cease control and do what He has asked us to do. We are powerful human beings and knowing that we can be anything and do anything we want is a pretty awesome thing to be blessed with.

Two Years Later

So here we are, two years later, two years wiser (not really), and a lot has changed. I'll start with a storybook update. Since 2013, I moved back to Idaho to continue my education at Brigham Young University-Idaho and it has been a great experience thus far. I am currently majoring in Dance, hopefully being able to teach at a university someday. I haven't decided exactly on what part of the dance world I want to teach to college kids (dance history, kinesiology, modern), but I guess I will worry about that when I graduate. As for the cute picture you see above you, I did get married. Even though I got married in January, I still like to consider us newlyweds because it still feels like we just got married yesterday. Let me introduce you to my husband. Meet Brent! He is 6"8:) and full of life and love. We did meet up here at school on a blind date and it was quite the experience (long story), but I could not be happier with this hunk from Washington. He is my one and only, my best friend, my eternal companion, and my light. He is majoring in Mechanical Engineering and since I am his wife, I have a right to brag about how smart this guy is. He is a genius and I could not be more proud of what he has accomplished in his 20 years he has been on this earth. We got married January 3, and I have never been happier. I love him and I cannot wait to experience life and eternity with this man.

Well that is us in a literal nutshell. On to the real reason of this post. This semester in my college experience, I am taking a course called Family Foundations that is not only a requirement to graduate, but it is also a religion class that deals with the teachings of The Family: A Proclamation To The World. I have been given an assignment to keep a blog throughout the semester that is based off of articles and talks that I read. I am required to write about insights I have on the readings, feelings I get when I read them, and anything else that I feel obligated to write about. So you are more than welcome to read this, but don't feel like you have to. This is merely for me as a way to the pass the class:) and to also provide opinions and feelings that I say when I read my assignments. I will write a post each week explaining what I read and what I took from it. Feel free to give your opinions and insights (if you choose to). I would LOVE to hear them and I know that other people would to. I will write a new post each Sunday, which I am hoping will be easier in having the Spirit be a part of my writing and so feel free to read and comment at your own will.:) I am hoping that this blog will give me guidance into my future life and I hope that it may bring you some guidance and structure as well. Thank you so much and I will see you all on Sunday:))