Young Adults and Marriage

Since it's around that time of graduation for high schooler's, I thought it would be a great time to post a blog about my opinions of marriage and most importantly what some church leaders have said. It is that time in your life when your mind is full of wonders. What will happen when you head off to college? What about that boy or girl you said you were going to wait for on their mission? What will college be like?

 I had all of these worries as well and  thought I had it all figured out. I would go to college and just date around for a couple of years while I experienced and enjoyed the fun college life. Speaking of the fun college life, I imagined I would be out with friends every night and some how my homework would just magically get done. One thing was for sure, I was not going to be getting married after my first year BY-Ido for sure. Boy was I wrong. I guess Heavenly Father needed to teach me a little lesson on becoming humble:)

Now that marriage is in the not too distant future for some of you, or for others maybe it is but, there are 3 good questions to ask yourself no matter your feelings on marriage.

1. When? So when in the world are you going to get married? The church has counseled young adults who have graduated (and served a mission for some) not to put off getting married. They are concerned with the youth today. Many are putting off marriage because that is not the cool thing to do anymore. President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "I hope you will not put off marriage too long... Don't go on endlessly in frivolous dating game. Look for a choice companion, one you can love, honor, and respect, and make a decision." Now I don't think that he is implying we need to force ourselves to get married, but we shouldn't put it off just because. I think one thing that goes along with this is preparing yourself. You don't want an amazing companion to pass you up because your not ready. 

In my textbook they said to trust in The Lord and follow what the spirit tells you. This was a huge thing for Kelsey and I as we were deciding when to get married. We didn't know if we should wait longer or get married when we did. We had been dating for a little while and didn't want to rush into anything. I also knew I was young. Ultimately we ended up praying about it and the spirit confirmed to both of us that we should get married sooner rather than later. We were in love and knew we wanted to spend the rest of eternity together so why wait. I got a lot of grief for it but, looking back I know it was the right time for us to get married.

2. Who? This is a big one. You need to know who you want to marry before you get married! One thing the church leaders really focus is on is that there is no such thing as a soul mate. When I first arrived here at BYU-I a member of the bishopric said that in one of his talks. I always knew it was true in the back of my mind but when he said it, I felt like he had just told me that Santa Clause was not real. I love this saying, "while soul mates are found, eternal companions are chosen and made." You are in control of who you marry. You get to pick. It wasn't aligned in the stars because it's up to you to decide that. 

I met Kelsey my very first week up at BYU-I. I remember thinking to myself from the moment he walked in the door of my apartment how cute he was. I remember thinking to myself oh man I am in trouble. It wasn't love at first sight but I had this weird feeling that he was someone I could marry. I thought I was crazy because I hardly knew the guy. But I can remember talking to my mom about it.  We facebook stalked him of course and my mom confirmed he was cute and looked like a good guy. 

3. How? So now how are you going to go about finding that one to marry? There is a little formula my book recommends and I think it is a good one. 1. Traditional dating- This is where you go on dates with tons of different guys and girls. You are just trying to get to know people and see if there is anyone out there you like. This is what I call the friend stage. 2. Exclusive Dating- So after your many dates you finally found a guy or girl you really like. This is where you and that special someone start to get serious. Those scary talks about marriage and a future come up and you see if your values and views align. Oh yeah and you also fall in love:) 3. Engagement- Now you know it. That girl or boy is the one you have chosen, not your soul mate, and you want to spend eternity with them. You get engaged, get married in the temple and live happily ever after.

Kelsey and I remained friends after we met for a whole semester before we started dating. I went on a few dates with other guys and so did he. We actually never went on dates with each other but we were the best of friends. I secretly had a HUGE crush on him and he had a crush on me as well but we never told each other. Well Christmas rolled around and Kelsey finally got the guts up to tell me he liked me. How you may ask? Well he pretended to have a dream we were dating and told me that. Then he asked what I would think if we did. We talked about it and started dating. The rest is history. We quickly fell in love and I knew he was the one I had to spend eternity with. We got engaged in April and got married in the Seattle temple in August 2011. It has been the best 2 years of my life and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

There really is no formula or science when it comes to marriage and finding your spouse. There is no one else that can answer any of these three questions except for you, The Lord and the person you are considering marrying. Rely on the spirit and I know it will never lead you astray. 

And of course some pictures of Kelsey and I dating to wrap everything up:)

Parenting

This topic has been on my mind a lot lately since I am taking a family and parenting class... imagine that:) I have been doing a lot of reading on how I can become a better parent when Kelsey and I have our own children. One things I have always known but am starting to get better ideas on how the part is having limits for your children and doing it with love so you can have a good relationship with them. I read a list given that every child needs and I thought I would share with you all.

- love, warmth, and support

- clear and reasonable expectations for competent behavior

- limits and boundaries with some room for negotiation and compromise

- reasoning and developmentally appropriate consequences and punishments for breaching established rules

- opportunities to preform competently and make choices

- absence from coercive, hostile forms of discipline, such as harsh physical punishment, love with-drawl, shaming, and inflicting guilt

- models of appropriate behavior consistent with self-control, positive values, and positive attitudes

Let me just restate that these are things that all children need. Some of the things on this list someone may say a child would be fine if they didn't have and they are probably right but, to provide the best life for our children these are the things we need to give to them.

I have a few thoughts on the list above. 

1. First off, I think this list screams one overlying thing. As adults we must always remember that we are the adult in our parent-child relationship. We are the ones who need to set the tone and example. If we scream at our children, we are going to teach them it is okay to scream at others. Another thing that goes along with that is to pick and choose our battles. Don't get into a power struggle with a child. Remember that you are the adult and you control the situation.

2. I love in the third bullet that is says to set limits and be willing to compromise. Just because we are the parent doesn't mean that we are always right. Sometimes our rules may become old and need some updating. Like if we have a child whose bedtime was 7 when she was 5 but she is now 10 and wants to stay up later, it may be time to change our expectation. Sometimes we make a rule that your child thinks just isn't fair. I think that part of compromise means listening to you child's reason for why that rule isn't fair even if you don't change your mind.

3. In the fourth bullet point it talks about explaining your reasoning. No child wants to hear their parent say "because I said so." 9 times out of 10 that is just going to leave the child feeling more frustrated and angry because they don't think you have a good enough answer for the rule. It will help our children understand our parenting and why we do the things we do if we explain to them why. 

4. My last thought comes from the 5th bullet. We need to allow our children to make their own choices. I know this can be tough for a parent because they always want to protect their children and save them anything bad that can happen to them. But sometimes this is how they need to learn. We came here to this earth to use our agency and parents need to allow their children to do so. 

I don't know from experience yet, but I can only imagine how hard parenting is. Don't beat yourself up if you make mistakes, we all are going to. I know that if you use the spirit to guide you in all our parenting efforts you won't be led astray. 

And as always here are some pictures of my parents. They were and are the ultimate example to me and I hope to be half the parents they are someday.

Forgiving in the Family

We all love our family right? Then why is that we often hurt them more then our friends and don't forgive them easy. We are going to be with our family forever and it would be best if we learn to forgive easy.

While doing research for this topic I found 3 different factors that are associated with forgiveness. They are situational factors, relational factors and personality factors. When we are harmed by someone else, weather we know it or not, we use these three factors to decide weather or not we want to forgive the person who wronged us. I did not know that I used these factors but now that I think back, I totally use this formula. This is why I think its harder for us to forgive family members. It is said that the closer you are to the person who wronged you, the harder it is for you to forgive them. 

Another great thing that I found was a formula on how to forgive someone. If we use this guide, I think it can save a lot heart ache and hurt feelings within the family. 

1. Recall the hurt: Often times when we are hurt, we get mad and then say something to the affect of that person means nothing to you and then try to put it out of our mind. The first step in forgiving is to recall why you were hurt and know why that hurt you.

2. Empathize: In this step of the forgiveness process, we need to try and see why the person who wronged us did. We look at the situation from their perspective and try to understand what was going through their mind in the situation. We may even try to think of something we did wrong in the situation.

3. Offer the Altruistic Gift of Forgiveness: We need to humble ourselves and know that we are not perfect and have our own faults. It is also a good time to remind ourselves of the times when others have forgiven us when we wronged them. 

4. Commit Publicly to forgiving: This is where we verbalize the commitment to forgive the person who has wronged us to someone else. This person can help us follow through on our commitment because we have actually verbalized it.

5. Hold on to Forgiveness: The last step is to always remember your commitment to forgive. There may be times when we remember the thing the person did to wrong us and we start having negative feelings towards them again. At this time we need to remember our commitment to forgive them and remind ourselves why we forgave them.

I have a testimony of forgiveness and I know that forgiving our family members is very important. If we follow these steps and rely on our Savior to help us heal from things that have harmed us, we are going to be much happier! 

Divorce

This weeks topic is on divorce. The older I have become, the more prevalent I have seen divorce becoming. According to researchers, they have found that about 40-50 percent of all first marriages and 60 percent of all other marriages end in divorce in the United States today! No I did not mis-type these percentages. So why? Why are so many people giving up on their marriages and how can we prevent this from happening from us? Luckily we have some counsel from our wonderful prophets and apostles to help us stay clear of these things.

President Faust gave us three principles to consider when we are thinking about getting a divorce. He says that if we go through these three steps it can help us to determine if our reasonings for divorce are "just cause."

1. Prolonged Difficulties- These are problems that you may have been having in your marriage for long amounts of time. Sometimes when a problem occurs couples try to fix it for a short amount of time and when it doesn't work, they rush to the conclusion that they just don't work anymore. President Faust has told us that we need to take steps to try and fix the problem and give it time before we decide if we can fix the problem or not. I think one key thing to remember here is our spouse is not perfect. They are going to make mistakes. If we allow time and try to fix the problem, it will allow for mistakes to be made and for them to correct them.

2. Apparently Irredeemable Relationship- By this point, President Faust says we need to try to determine if there is any chance for the marriage to be redeemed. One thing that really stuck out to me was if one partner refuses to make an effort to change, that does not mean the other one doesn't need to either. 

3. Destruction of Human Dignity- President Faust said that if we get to the point where we begin to lose our self worth than maybe it is time to consider a divorce. However just feeling unhappy or unfulfilled does not meet these standards. Things that just get on our nerves or bug us about our partner rarely causes someone to feel like they don't have self worth. 

I just wanted to share some things that kelsey and I do to keep our marriage going strong. Granted we are no where close to being perfect but these things help us a lot.

1. We date each other- Once a week, normally Friday, we go on a date. We are both busy with school and other activities throughout the week and we set aside this time to go and do something fun together. This allows us to spend time one on one without the distractions of school or other things. It is us time. 

2. We communicate- Whenever something is bothering me or something is bothering him, we let each other know. We are very open with each other and we never hide anything. Also to go along with communicating, we just talk to each other. We make sure to sit down and have dinner together every night where we just talk about our day.     

3. We are Silly- A major part of both of our personalities is being goofy and never serious. This helps us to always be ourselves. I say some of the weirdest things sometimes and it makes me so happy to know that he still loves even though I am weird.

4. We show affection for each other- I think this is a major one for both of us because it helps me to know he still finds me a attractive and I find him attractive. It is also a way that we can show love for each other. 

5. Lastly, we pray, read the scriptures, and go to the temple together- When we are on the same page spiritually, it helps us come so much closer together. It helps us to keep the eternal perspective in mind and remember that the silly little things like leaving your clothes on the floor don't matter.

Hope everyone is enjoying their May!!

Mothers

I thought I would start off my blog by introducing myself. I am Nicole Bernard and I am a student at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I am in my last semester and I very excited to be graduating. I have been married to my husband Kelsey for almost 2 years. We were sealed for all time and eternity in the Seattle, Washington Temple on August 6, 2011. I am a convert to the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My family and I joined the church in Guam. I love this gospel and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a member of this church. The reason I started this blog was so I could discuss topics of the gospel and hopefully share them with others.

I thought since today is Mother's Day it would be fitting to start off my blog by talking about mothers. In the proclamation to the world put out by the leaders of the church it states that mothers are primarily responsible for the nurturing of their children. If you have not read the proclamation I encourage you to go check it out. = Proclamation to the World

So why become a mother? Why is so important that we women bear children? There are many reasons but the first and foremost reason is because we are commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. As man and women our Father in Heaven has blessed us with the powers to procreate, within the bounds of marriage. There are so many precious children up in Heaven that are waiting for their chance to come to earth and experience all that it has to offer. We have to power the allow them to come down. I don't know about you, but that is the most special gift that Heavenly Father could have given me.

I have discussed the importance of motherhood with my own mother and she has told me that there isn't any other job that she would rather do. The amount of love you have for your children and the amount of joy they bring into your life is so special that it makes all of the hard times worth it. Although becoming and being a mother is hard work, the amount of joy and love that comes from it makes it all worth it.

I do not like to share this with others a lot but I recently had a miscarriage about a month ago and it was the hardest thing that I have ever been through. When Kelsey and I found out that I was pregnant I was beyond the moon with excitement. I had been dreaming of becoming a mother my whole life and it was finally happening. Even though my baby was still growing inside of me, I already had so much love for that baby. When I found out that we had lost the baby I was heart broken that I would never to be able to see that baby or be a mother to that baby. But then my mom reminded me that I would. That is what is so wonderful about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I will get to be a mother to that baby someday, just not now.

We have been counseled by the leaders of the church to stay home with our children as much as we can. When we are able to stay home with them and not work, we are able to be much more involved in their lives and teach them more. When we put the role of motherhood over worldly possession, The Lord will bless us and will help us in areas that we fall short. Although you are not paid to be a mother, it is the hardest job a women can ever do. They are not just a mother they are a taxi, a nurse, a teacher, a listener, etc.. We should never feel like the calling of motherhood is insignificant or meaningless. In the eyes of our Father in Heaven it is the greatest thing that a women can ever do.

The Lord has always said that He never promised it would be easy but He does promise it will be worth it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that motherhood is a divine role that our Father in Heaven has given to us women. It is a leap of faith but I promise you will be blessed for bearing children. I look forward to the day where I can hold a precious spirit of the Lord's in my hands and be the mother to that child.

I will leave with a quote by Spencer W. Kimball:
"Mothers have a sacred role. They are partners with God, as well as with their own husbands, first giving birth to the Lord's spirit children, and then rearing those children so they will serve The Lord and keep His commandments."

Here are a few pictures of me a my precious mom who I love dearly. She is the inspiration in my life and I hope to one day be half the mother she is to me. She is my best friend and my support system and has taught me so much that I could never thank her enough! I love you mom!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms!