On Wednesday we talked about the talk Counseling with your Councils and how that could be applied to families. We should be discussing issues together as a family council. First we reviewed how the first presidency and the 12 apostles come to decisions in their council meetings held ever Thursday in the temple. I found that to be very enlightening and a good template for us to follow in our own homes. They start their meeting by showing love towards each other then have a prayer. After they have the prayer they discuss the issue until they all agree that they have come to understand God's will on the matter than they have a closing prayer and end with a dessert. The dessert is a bonding experience which unifies them again. One student recognized that this routine is a chiasm. I think that we should model our family discussions after this example. Before we ever bring up an issue we should express our love and concern for our family members than we should pray that the spirit will be with us and that we will be able to know God's will. Then we come to a consensuses not a compromise. If we truly understand God's will then neither of us should be giving up anything and we should both be happy with the final decision. We should pray and make sure that we have made the right decision and then we should unify ourselves again so that we end on a good note with everyone feeling right about the outcome.

This week we discussed family crisis and how they can either draw a family closer together or distance a family. We were asked to identify 10 family crisis and reflect on how our family members reacted and the impact the events had on the family. I found this to be a very interesting assignment. I noticed that even though the crisis were really hard at the time and I wished then that they had never happened I can now look back on many of these experiences and be grateful for the lessons I learned from them. It just shows that God really does give us trials to help us grow. Many times we believe these trials only effect us individually, but from making this list I have come to see they not only help us grow as a person but grow together as a family. During times of trial we not only learn to rely on God but we also learn to lean on our family members for support and strength. That just shows how much God loves us, he gave us a support systems here on earth, the family and I am so very grateful for them!

This week we have been talking about intimacy in marriage. My roommate is also taking a marriage prep class at this time and they have been talking about pornography. We have talked together about some of the things we are learning and it has just made me wonder what I can do if anything to prevent my husband from getting into that kind of stuff. I want to know what I can do to protect my marriage. Some of the ideas I came up with are praying with my husband daily, going to the temple together weekly, dating weekly, continuing to be affectionate all throughout our marriage, turning to him emotionaly and no one else, serving and loving him, putting the computer out where everyone can see it, not having cable TV, checking up on him to see if there is ever that temptaion, and just being there for him. I know that there are lots of good people who have problems with pornography or affairs in their marriages but I really don't want that to happen to me and I am willing to do all that I can to prevent that.

Today in class we talked about what happens after the couple gets married. After they have been married its a time for them to "put up their white picket fence." Meaning they need to set boundries as to how much family involvement they both want. It is vital that the newly married couple seperates themselves enought from their parents that they are able to establish their own family. They can establish their own family by deciding the roles they will each play- house keeping, who provides the income etc. They should also set a presitence as to how they will handle conflict. When we started talking about conflict Brother Williams read a scripture from the Doctrine and Covenants on how and when we should confront someone about an issue that bothers us. In the scriptures we are told to use sharpness. Brother Williams explained that this means "with surgical percision." I found that to be very insightful! We shouldn't confront someone by attacking their character we need to be clear and specific about the issue that bothers us. I really enjoyed the discussion today because I felt like I learned alot about dealing with conflict and confrontation. I love how you can always turn to the scriptures for instruction dealing with any problem. And I just loved how Brother Williams picked apart each word to better our understanding of the verses.

This week we talked about love and mate selection. We discussed the 4 greek words used to describe differnt levels of love. There is Eros- romantic love, Agape- love for others well being, Phlia- brotherly love, and Storge- familial love. We were then asked to decided what percent of each catagories we would want in our own marriages. I found that for me I think I would like to have 25% for each. I wouldn't like to feel that my marriage was lacking in one of these areas. I also wouldn't be able to decided which area I would rather have a higher percentage of love in. I find them all to be equally important in cultivating a healthy relationship. I hope that as I am dating I will be able to build strong foundations of love in all these areas with the person I eventually marry. I think it was good that we discussed these catagories so that as we look for an eternal companion we can make sure our relationships aren't built to heavily on only one form of love and lacking in the rest.

Gender Roles

In class we talked alot about gender roles. We focused on female typical and male typical roles such as women being good at nurturing and men being the providers in the home. I believe that we place ourselves in these roles not because we are cultured and forced into these roles but because we have inate gender typical strengths. When we recognize that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with different gifts we can better understand how to work together as a couple to help eachother and create a family in the way our Father planned for us. We talked in class about how some people believe equality among genders means the husband and wife both give 50/50. Meaning they both spend as many hours outside of the home working as they do inside of the home working. I believe this leads to the break up of families. When we become too independent and stop relying on eachother for help and support we become two individuals with seperate lives living in the same house. Instead we should use the gifts we have been given and allow our spouse to use their strengths to make up where we lack instead of trying to do it all ourselves. If we follow that pattern our Father in Heaven has created for the family we will be the happiest.

At the beging of the semester I made it a goal to learn and pick up different family traditions and values from the various family cultures we study that I want to implament in my future family. For today's class we read an article about how immigration has effected hyspanic families. One thing that I learned from the reading that I would like to take from their culture is there great sense of "familism." In the hyspanic culture their families seem to be more involved in eachother's lives and tend to include their extended family in more activities. In the reading it said that those imigrants who leave Mexico and come here tend to lose that familism. I think that is partialy due to the fact that they are leaving a lot of their extended family but more primarily due to their adapting to the U.S.'s independent lifestyle. In my own family I want to adopt that idea of familism. I want my children not only to have a close relationship with me and my husband but also with eachother and our extended family. I want to be one of those families that plays games together, takes vacations together, and just enjoys being with eachother.