Adding children to the family :)

The whole gospel is mainly focused on the family. In order to make it to the celestial kingdom, we need to have a family. The whole Plan of Salvation is designed around us creating a family and making it back to our Father in Heaven. Marriage is a huge step and is a wonderful blessing. But after marriage, the nest big step comes. Children. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am to be a mother. I want nothing more than to raise children and be a loving, nurturing mother. I know it will be a huge step in my husbands' and I lives but I know it will be so worth it. I also know that there will be many challenges along with having children. In class we talked about how when a couple has their first child, they experience a bit of a separation because there is another person to worry about in the family. The mother may devote all of her time to the baby during the day and when the husband gets home and wants attention from his wife, his wife is too exhausted. This could cause the husband to be jealous and feel unloved and unwanted. Now that I have this information, I feel like I can be extra careful in preventing this from occurring when my husband and I start having children.

L.O.V.E.

I really liked this weeks topic because it was about love! One of the most important things to me in my life! I love to feel loved by my family and friends and especially my husband. I also really like to find ways to express my love and appreciation to those around me. We talked about how there are 4 main types of love and each one has a different meaning and aspect to it. It is so cool to me that when you ask someone what their definition is for love, you will rarely get the same response that you heard from someone else you may have asked. Love could mean so many different things. The love I feel for my husband is so different than the love I have for food or for material things. The love I have for my family is more of a caring and committed love. I have that love for my husband also but the love my husband I have is on a much deeper level and involves more intimate love also. I feel so connected to people when I realize how much I really do love them. That does not mean that I am IN love with everyone like I am with my husband...it just means I care for somebody. Love is such a happy topic and I am so glad we could talk about it this week! :)

Gender Roles

This week we talked a lot about gender roles and how important it is to have each one the home. Many people in the world believe that men and women are completely the same and that women should be able to hold the same high positions as men. I believe that women are great in the work force and do contribute a lot, but I think that if women began taking over and holding most of the high positions in the work force, many things would not get done, or at least not as quickly. We talked about divine roles and how men and women each have specific traits and characteristics that are natural. Women are nurturing, relationship-oriented, more verbal, they use land marks, and they are detail oriented. Men are aggressive, task-oriented, like action, have a startle-response, and spacial-oriented. I think that men are in high positions because they are able to make quick decisions and get things going, where as women might have trouble making decisions so quickly. Also, within the gospel men are privileged to hold the priesthood and are supposed to protect, preside, and provide. They are supposed to be there to support the family and preside over them. Women have the gift of nurturing for a reason. They fulfill their divine role best in the home. I do believe there are exceptions to this also because sometimes women have no choice but to work to be able to support their families. Overall, I believe men and women have divine roles for a reason and men and women need to stick to these sacred roles.

Week three

This week was a great week in class. I think the thing that impacted me the most through this weeks class was the discussion on family structures and family systems. I believe that each person comes from their own unique family structure and traditions. Personally, my husband and I came from completely different structures and traditions as we were growing up. We had to adjust a lot when we got married and had to develop our own family structure and compromise. We had to communicate our thoughts and feelings fully so we could decide what would be best for us to do in starting our family. We both had a bit of a hard time adjusting to each others ways of doing things but that is whats so cool about developing our own family traditions.

Week Two

This week we talked a lot about boundaries and how different families set their own boundaries and you can often tell what those boundaries are based on appearance. For example, a family with a Rigid Boundary would be very un-social and would keep to themselves. On the other end of the spectrum, a family with a Diffuse Boundary might be very open with who they converse with and allow many people into their lives and don't really have boundaries. A family with Clear Boundaries means that they are not completely reserved, but they are also not so open. It is a perfect balance between the rigid and diffuse boundaries and really helps to keep a family close, but not too close. Families are the most important thing and if boundaries are not set right, then it could be very harmful to the relationships between each person in the family.