"The Family is of God"

I just watched the April 2015 General Women's Broadcast. There were a lot of great talks and uplifting music all centered around... The Family! Which of course I thought was awesome because it's exactly what I've been learning about all semester. At the beginning of the broadcast there was a video of families singing the children's song, "The Family is of God," which I had actually never heard before. I'm not usually one to be especially touched by the music in our conferences and church meetings, but as I watched the video tonight this song became an instant favorite of mine.

What a great way to summarize and teach the simple truths of the doctrine of the family to children (or, well... anybody!) So I looked it up because I really wanted to share it here. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) they don't have on Youtube yet the video they just showed in conference, but I did find a different video with accompanying lyrics. Please listen to this primary song and think about the beautiful lessons it teaches about families.

[Update: Actually I just found the video from Conference on lds.org! Here it is:]

Lyrics:
Verse 1.
Our Father has a family, it's me, it's you, all others too, 
we are His children.
He sent each one of us to Earth, through birth,
to live and learn here in families.

Chorus:
God game us families,
to help us become what He wants us to be.
This is how He shares His love.
For the family is of God.

Verse 2.
A father's place is to preside, provide,
to love and teach the gospel to his children.
A father leads in family prayer, to share
their love for Father in Heaven.

Chorus:
God game us families,
to help us become what He wants us to be.
This is how He shares His love.
For the family is of God.

Verse 3.
A mother's purpose is to care, prepare,
to nurture and to strengthen all her children.
She teaches children to obey, to pray, 
to love and serve in the family.

Chorus:
God game us families,
to help us become what He wants us to be.
This is how He shares His love.
For the family is of God.

Verse 4:
I'll love and serve my family, and be, 
a good example to each family member.
And when I am a mom or dad, so glad,
I'll help my family remember.

Chorus:
God game us families,
to help us become what He wants us to be.
This is how He shares His love.
For the family is of God.

To Mothers and Fathers

For my class I read some great counsel to mothers and fathers from President Ezra Taft Benson that I really feel is worth devoting a whole post to. There are 10 pieces of counsel each to mothers and to fathers, and it is exactly the counsel the I hope Rodolfo and I will follow when parenting our own children someday.

To mothers:

1. Be at the crossroads. - Be there when children are coming or going, whether it be to or from school, dates, or friends' houses.

2. Be a real friend to your children. - Regularly spend unrushed one-on-one time with each child.

3. Read to your children. - Starting from the cradle, read to your sons and daughters.

4. Pray with your children. - Family prayers, under the direction of the father, should be held morning and night.

5. Have weekly family home evenings. - With your husband presiding, participate in a spiritual and an uplifting home evening each week. Have you children actively involved. Teach them correct principles.

6. Be together at mealtimes. - "This is a challenge... but happy conversation, sharing of the day’s plans and activities, and special teaching moments occur at mealtime because mothers and fathers and children work at it."

7. Read Scriptures Daily as a family. - Individual scripture reading is important, but family scripture reading is vital.

8. Do things as a family. - Make family outings and picnics and birthday celebrations and trips special times and memory builders. Whenever possible, attend, as a family, events where one of the family members is involved, such as a school play, a ball game, a talk, a recital.

9. Teach your children.

10. Truly love your children, and make sure they know it.

To fathers:

1. Give father’s blessings to your children. Baptize and confirm your children. Ordain your sons to the priesthood.

2. Personally direct family prayers, daily scripture reading, and weekly family home evenings. - Your personal involvement will show your children how important these activities really are.

3. Whenever possible, attend Church meetings together as a family. - Family worship under your leadership is vital to your children’s spiritual welfare.

4. Go on daddy-daughter dates and father-and-sons’ outings with your children. - As a family, go on campouts and picnics, to ball games and recitals, to school programs, and so forth. Having Dad there makes all the difference.

5. Build traditions of family vacations and trips and outings. - These memories will never be forgotten by your children.

6. Have regular one-on-one visits with your children. - Let them talk about what they would like to. Teach them gospel principles. Teach them true values. Tell them you love them. Personal time with your children tells them where Dad puts his priorities.

7. Teach your children to work, and show them the value of working toward a worthy goal. - Establishing mission funds and education funds for your children shows them what Dad considers to be important.

8. Encourage good music and art and literature in your homes. - Homes that have a spirit of refinement and beauty will bless the lives of your children forever.

9. As distances allow, regularly attend the temple with your wife. - Your children will then better understand the importance of temple marriage and temple vows and the eternal family unit.

10. Have your children see your joy and satisfaction in service to the Church. - This can become contagious to them, so they, too, will want to serve in the Church and will love the kingdom.

Before I wrap this up, here are just a couple of more quotes directed at husbands and fathers:

Elder Packer: "Holders of the priesthood, in turn, must accommodate themselves to the needs and responsibilities of the wife and mother. Her physical and emotional and intellectual and cultural well-being and her spiritual development must stand first among his priesthood duties. There is no task, however menial, connected with the care of babies, the nurturing of children, or with the maintenance of the home that is not his [the husband's] equal obligation."

Elder Oaks:"Homemaking is not just baking bread or cleaning a house. Homemaking is to make the environment necessary to nurture our children toward eternal life, which is our responsibility as parents. In that, homemaking is as much for fathers as it is for mothers."

Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments

So today I want to talk about another serious topic (the Law of Chastity) as I learned about it in an amazing BYU devotional talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.

Now, if you're like me, any time you find out you're about to hear from Elder Holland, it goes something like this:




Let's be honest, this is probably true:



Seriously, when I was reading the book of Alma recently, I totally got an "Elder Holland" vibe about Captain Moroni. And you know what the scriptures say about Moroni... :
"Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men." (Alma 48:17)

And this talk was really powerful, awesome stuff, so I hope you'll listen to the devotional

Here -->

And/or read the whole talk here.

But if you don't have time for that, keep reading, as I'm going to include and talk about my favorite parts here :)

And I'll warn you right now, I'm probably going to include lots of quotes, because...




But in all seriousness, this was an amazing talk addressing a somewhat sensitive topic that we as church members get asked about all the time by non-members, and I'm sure I've never heard a better explanation outside of this talk by Elder Holland.

So let's get started:

In this talk, he gives three major reasons behind the "why?" of the Law of Chastity, as summarized by his alliterative title, "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments."

"Why be morally clean?" Why is it so serious?

"Setting aside sins against the Holy Ghost as a special category unto themselves, it is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord’s list of life’s most serious sins. By assigning such rank to a physical appetite so conspicuously evident in all of us, what is God trying to tell us about its place in His plan for all men and women in mortality? I submit to you He is doing precisely that–commenting about the very plan of life itself. Clearly God’s greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it."

I think that quote is just so incredibly insightful. I had never thought about that before. I used to think it was strange that sexual sins were considered more "abominable" than things like theft and cheating/fraud, considering the law does more to discourage the latter than the former, but now it makes much more sense.

Elder Holland goes on to say that fortunately we, as a society, are generally pretty responsible when it comes to taking life. We understand the sanctity of life and we usually do not intentionally endanger our lives or the lives of others. But for some reason, when it comes to the creation of life, people give no such level of care or concern--in fact they treat it with reckless abandon (or as Elder Holland calls it, "near-criminal irresponsibility"). If people had the same attitude about taking lives as they do about giving life, we'd be living in absolute chaos. But as Elder Holland says, "What would in the case of taking life bring absolute horror and demand grim justice, in the case of giving life brings dirty jokes, four-letter language, and wholesale voyeurism in movies, on television, over the internet, and almost everywhere else we turn." It's horrible, when you think about it like that.

Well now that we've thought a little bit about why it's so serious, let's get into Elder Holland's three specific points.

Souls

"One of the 'plain and precious' truths restored to this dispensation is that 'the spirit and the body are the soul of man,' ... So partly in answer to why such seriousness, we answer that when one toys with the God-given–and satanically coveted–body of another, he or she toys with the very soul of that individual, toys with the central purpose and product of life, 'the very key' to life, as Elder Boyd K. Packer once called it. In trivializing the soul of another (please include the word body there) we trivialize the atonement, which saved that soul and guaranteed its continued existence. ... The first key reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake."

Wow... that is some powerful stuff. That's definitely something we should think about when we're tempted to flout the law of chastity.


Symbols (of Total Unity)

"Second, human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity. Such an act of love between a man and a woman is–or certainly was ordained to be–a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything. It is a symbol that we try to suggest in the temple with a word like seal." 

"But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can come only with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess–their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams. They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple. And the external symbol of that union, the physical manifestation of what is a far deeper spiritual and metaphysical bonding, is the physical blending that is part of–indeed, a most beautiful and gratifying expression of–that larger, more complete union of eternal purpose and promise."

I find that so beautifully stated. When you read that it seems unbelievable that two people could have the audacity to share something like that that is meant to bind a couple together in a symbol of unity and love despite neither loving each other nor having had committed themselves to each other at least for life if not for eternity. When you understand the true purpose of physical intimacy, what once might have seemed harmless becomes just the grossest abuse and mockery of something sacred and beautiful.

Elder Holland continues:

"Can you see then the moral duplicity that comes from pretending we are one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union, but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects–and symbols–of what was meant to be a total obligation... ?" 

"If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent and that only God’s grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue."

Wow... again, very powerful stuff. And okay, I know this segment is already super long, but all of this material is just so good, I can't risk you guys missing it!

Quoting his LDS friend, Dr. Victor L. Brown Jr., Elder Holland says:

“Fragmentation enables its users to counterfeit intimacy. . . . If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . ."

Now here I think is a very practical application of this principle that I think even those who might be non-believers can get behind and understand. Even if you don't believe that our bodies are part of our souls, or that sex is meant to be anything nobler or spiritually significant than what our society makes it out to be, you can't deny the consequences described by Dr. Brown.


Sacraments

"For our purpose, a sacrament could be any one of a number of gestures or acts or ordinances that unite us with God and His limitless powers. ... These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God’s will, our spirit with His Spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge His divinity, but we also quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. Such are the holy sacraments."

Well, this concept was a little harder for me to grasp than the ones he talked about above, but I believe the gist of it is that because physical intimacy is the means of creating life, that is when we are most God-like. And because it is a time when we are most closely emulating God and his matchless power, it is a "sacrament" to him. But Elder Holland says it better than I do, so here are some more of his words:

"... I submit that we will never be more like God at any other time in this life than when we are expressing that particular power. Of all the titles He has chosen for Himself, Father is the one He declares, and creation is His watchword–especially human creation, creation in His image. His glory isn’t a mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It isn’t in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as beautiful as
they all are. It isn’t in art or technology, be that a concerto or computer. No, His glory–and His grief–is in His children. We–you and I–are His prized possessions, and we are the earthly evidence, however inadequate, of what He truly is. Human life is the greatest of God’s powers, the most mysterious and magnificent chemistry of it all, and you and I have been given it, but under the most serious and sacred of restrictions."

In Conclusion

"Souls. Symbols. Sacraments. Do these words suggest why human intimacy is such a serious matter? Why it is so right and rewarding, so stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just “good” but “very good”), and so blasphemously wrong–like unto murder–when it is outside such a covenant?"

I hope you do understand it better now and why we, as a church, take it so seriously. I know I do, and I'm grateful to Elder Holland for imparting this message so clearly and powerfully. Definitely listen to the whole thing if you have a chance. You won't regret it!

Things As They Really Are

For this unit of my class we had to listen to a really, really excellent talk by Elder David A. Bednar called "Things As They Really Are." This talk especially struck home for me because in it he counsels us regarding things like internet use and video games (which are and have been very prevalent in my life, and which I have strong feelings about). But what I especially love is that it isn't the same rehashed message about avoiding bad media and seeking out things that are "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy" (though those are great messages as well). Instead, he takes a different approach on the whole issue, and it makes incredibly good sense.

I will go over some of my favorite parts in this blog post, but I really encourage you to watch his whole talk here:

And/or read it by clicking here.

It is really, really good.

And here are some of my favorite points that he makes:


First, Satan wants to disconnect us from our bodies because he is does not have one.
Elder Bednar says:

"In essence, [Satan] encourages us to think and act as if we were in our premortal, unembodied state. And, if we let him, he can cunningly employ some aspects of modern technology to accomplish his purposes. Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, earbuds, twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication."

Elder Bednar also advises us to be wary of wasting away our time in a digital world instead of living in the real world:

"Consider again the example I mentioned earlier of a young couple recently married in the house of the Lord. An immature or misguided spouse may devote an inordinate amount of time to playing video games, chatting online, or in other ways allowing the digital to dominate things as they really are. Initially the investment of time may seem relatively harmless, rationalized as a few minutes of needed relief from the demands of a hectic daily schedule. But important opportunities are missed for developing and improving interpersonal skills, for laughing and crying together, and for creating a rich and enduring bond of emotional intimacy. Progressively, seemingly innocent entertainment can become a form of pernicious enslavement."

Next point: we should not do things in a video game or online that we would not do in real life. Just because it is "not real" doesn't make experimenting with sins okay. Elder Bednar says:

"A simulation or model can lead to spiritual impairment and danger if the fidelity is high and the purposes are bad—such as experimenting with actions contrary to God’s commandments or enticing us to think or do things we would not otherwise think or do “because it is only a game.”"

This reminded me of a funny video by the BYU comedy troupe called Studio C. The video is about a group of guys who are playing for the first time an extremely realistic game that seems a lot like the Grand Theft Auto series. Watch it below!

As you can see, the guys go into it thinking they will have no moral dilemma over stealing cars at gunpoint or robbing banks (because after all, it's just a game, right?), but find that the game is so realistic that it feels wrong to them. While video games have (fortunately) not yet reached this level of realism, we still shouldn't play games that promote violence and other sinful behavior, thinking it's okay to steal cars, rob banks, or kill people just because it's a video game.

Final point: we are cautioned to not be taken in by the seeming anonymity of the internet. God knows who we are and what we are doing even if no one else does. Elder Bednar says:

"Now I would like to address an additional characteristic of the adversary’s attacks. Satan often offers an alluring illusion of anonymity. Lucifer always has sought to accomplish his work in secret (see Moses 5:30). Remember, however, that apostasy is not anonymous simply because it occurs in a blog or through a fabricated identity in a chat room or virtual world. Immoral thoughts, words, and deeds always are immoral, even in cyberspace. Deceitful acts supposedly veiled in secrecy, such as illegally downloading music from the Internet or copying CDs or DVDs for distribution to friends and families, are nonetheless deceitful. ... The Lord knows who we really are, what we really think, what we really do, and who we really are becoming. He has warned us that “the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed” (D&C 1:3)."

In conclusion, as technologies become more and more advanced and our world becomes more digitized, we need to take care not to become lost in the digital world and forgetful of what is real or of things as they really are.

Covenants and Ordinances

So why should we get married in the temple anyway? What difference does it really make if we are married civilly or sealed for eternity?

Here are some of the things I've learned in this unit on covenants and ordinances:

1. What ordinances are:
"In the Church, an ordinance is a sacred, formal act performed by the authority of the priesthood. Some ordinances are essential to our exaltation. These ordinances are called saving ordinances. They include: baptism, confirmation, ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood (for men), the temple endowment, and the marriage sealing. With each of these ordinances, we enter into solemn covenants with the Lord."

"... ordinances are physical actions that symbolize spiritual experiences. By taking part in them we receive the spiritual power we need to change our lives."

2. It is not enough to merely be good in this life--there are sacred ordinances which are necessary for salvation. 
For those who "have never heard the gospel, nor had any opportunity to accept it... They may hear it in the spirit world and the work may be done vicariously for them on earth, and they may be united." "We may be angels, if we are righteous enough. Even unmarried, we may reach the celestial kingdom, but we will be ministering angels only. You see, it is not a matter of righteousness only... There must be both the righteousness and the ordinances." --President Spencer W. Kimball


3. How important eternal marriage is:

From Elder McConkie's talk: "Everything that we do in the Church is connected and associated with and tied into the eternal order of matrimony that God has ordained." Woah. I had no idea eternal marriage was this important! But I guess if you think about it, it really is! The family is central to the plan of salvation, which is the whole plan and reason for... well, everything--and you wouldn't have an eternal family unit without the everlasting covenant of marriage! So it makes sense, but I never really realized that before.

4. The difference between a civil marriage and a covenant marriage:

From Elder Hafen's talk, "Covenant Marriage": We should remember the difference between a contractual marriage (the kind of marriage most people these days enter into) and a covenant marriage. A contractual marriage is one in which both parties "marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they're receiving what they bargained for." Sometimes it is hard to not view marriage in this way, especially in this world in which we live where contractual marriages abound. But if we enter into covenant marriages in which we stick together and work through our troubles come what may, we will come out of our trials better, stronger people and receive the blessings associated with keeping our covenants.

5. We essentially receive three things when we make and honor covenants: gifts and blessings, increased faith, and divine power. (Elder Christofferson's talk "The Power of Covenants")
Some quotes from Elder Christofferson that summarize these three points:

Gifts and Blessings: "First, as we walk in obedience to the principles and commandments of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we enjoy a continual flow of blessings promised by God in His covenant with us."

Increased Faith: "[covenants] produce the faith necessary to persevere and to do all things that are expedient in the Lord. ... In the first place, the promised fruits of obedience become evident, which confirms our faith. Secondly, the Spirit communicates God’s pleasure, and we feel secure in His continued blessing and help. ... With that knowledge, our faith becomes unbounded, having the assurance that God will in due time turn every affliction to our gain."

Divine Power: "When we have entered into divine covenants, the Holy Ghost is our comforter, our guide, and our companion. ... The gifts of the Holy Spirit are testimony, faith, knowledge, wisdom, revelations, miracles, healing, and charity, to name but a few (see D&C 46:13–26)."

Same-Sex Marriage

For this post I'd like to talk about what I read from the church regarding same-gender marriage and same-gender attraction.

Most of what I am referencing will be coming from "The Divine Institution of Marriage" (LDS Commentary from newsroom.lds.org, Jan. 2014)

It is so chock-full of great information about the church's perspective on this subject,so it is going to be really hard to condense it all, but I'll do my best to help out those with short attention spans like myself. :)

It begins by saying that since the publication of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in 1995, there have been many challenges to the institution of marriage, particularly the legalization of same-sex marriage by several national and state governments.

It therefore outlines four purposes for the commentary released by the church in this document:

1. "to reaffirm the Church’s declaration that marriage is the lawful union of a man and a woman." 

2. "to reaffirm that the Church has a single, undeviating standard of sexual morality: intimate relations are acceptable to God only between a husband and a wife who are united in the bonds of matrimony." 

3. "to set forth the Church’s reasons for defending marriage between a man and a woman as an issue of moral imperative" (meaning, "the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage derives from its doctrine and teachings, as well as from its concern about the consequences of same-sex marriage on religious freedom, society, families, and children") 

4. "to reaffirm that Church members should address the issue of same-sex marriage with respect and civility and should treat all people with love and humanity."

So to help you through this, I'm going to go through several important paragraphs in the document and try to summarize each in just a sentence or two.

"Marriage is far more than a contract between individuals to ratify their affections and provide for mutual obligations. Rather, marriage is a vital institution for rearing children and teaching them to become responsible adults. Throughout the ages, governments of all types have recognized marriage as essential in preserving social stability and perpetuating life. Regardless of whether marriages were performed as a religious rite or a civil ceremony, in almost every culture marriage has been protected and endorsed by governments primarily to preserve and foster the institution most central to rearing children and teaching them the moral values that undergird civilization."

Summary: Marriage not merely a contract to ratify people's affections. It is a religious and social institution whose primary purpose throughout the ages and in nearly every culture has been to rear and teach children the moral values that undergird civilization.

Super-summary: Marriage exists primarily for the benefit of children and society.

"It is true that some couples who marry will not have children, either by choice or because of infertility. The special status granted marriage is nevertheless closely linked to the inherent powers and responsibilities of procreation and to the innate differences between the genders. By contrast, same-sex marriage is an institution no longer linked to gender—to the biological realities and complementary natures of male and female. Its effect is to decouple marriage from its central role in creating life, nurturing time-honored values, and fostering family bonds across generations."

Summary: Even when marriage does not result in the creation of children, it is nevertheless closely linked with the powers of procreation and the innate differences between the genders. Male and female are both needed to create a child and naturally have complementary differences that create the ideal setting for rearing a child. To disregard this is to decouple marriage from its central role in creating life and rearing children.

Super-summary: Allowing same-sex marriages shifts the purpose of marriage from the benefit of children and society to the benefit of individual couples.

"Our modern era has seen traditional marriage and family—defined as a husband and wife with children in an intact marriage—come increasingly under assault, with deleterious consequences. ... A wide range of social ills has contributed to this weakening of marriage and family. These include divorce, cohabitation, non-marital childbearing, pornography, the erosion of fidelity in marriage, abortion, the strains of unemployment and poverty, and many other social phenomena. The Church has a long history of speaking out on these issues and seeking to minister to our members with regard to them. The focus of this document on same-sex marriage is not intended to minimize these long-standing issues."

Some more paraphrasing of what the essay says:

Many societal and religious leaders believe that redefining marriage to disregard gender will further weaken the institution of marriage over time, resulting in negative consequences for adults and children. (So basically... marriage and family are important institutions that are already on the decline, and redefining marriage will probably only make things worse.)

Legalizing same-sex marriage will affect and interfere with religious freedom.

"The possible diminishing of religious freedom is not the only societal implication of legalizing same-sex marriage. Perhaps the most common argument that proponents of same-sex marriage make is that it is essentially harmless and will not affect the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage in any way. “It won’t affect your marriage, so why should you care?” is the common refrain. While it may be true that allowing same-sex marriage will not immediately and directly affect existing marriages, the real question is how it will affect society as a whole over time, including the rising generation and future generations.[...]The all-important question of public policy must be: what environment is best for the child and for the rising generation? While some same-sex couples will obtain guardianship over children, traditional marriage provides the most solid and well-established social identity for children. It increases the likelihood that they will be able to form a clear gender identity, with sexuality closely linked to both love and procreation. By contrast, the legal recognition of same-sex marriage may, over time, erode the social identity, gender development, and moral character of children. No dialogue on this issue can be complete without taking into account the long-term consequences for children."

Summary: No proponents same-sex marriage can say unequivocally that same-sex marriage will not affect or harm traditional marriage, nor that children raised by same-gender parents will be just as well-off as children raised in a traditional home and family setting; furthermore, we believe that it will weaken these vital institutions, be a worse situation for children, and will perpetuate deteriorating morality in our society.

Gender and Eternal Identity

Unit 2 is, I imagine, the most controversial of the lessons we will be taught in this course, because it focuses on "Gender and Eternal Identity." This unit is comprised of such issues as gender roles in the home, society, and the church, as well as same-sex marriage--both of which are really contentious topics right now due to the feminist and gay rights movements.

So I realize that there are a lot of contending beliefs out there on these subjects, but I'm going to start with what "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" has to say about gender as well as the different parenting roles mothers and fathers have:


"Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

"By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

Some more things I learned:

1. We are created in God's image, male and female.
2. Our genders are eternal ("What we call gender was part of our existence prior to our birth."--Elder Dallin H. Oaks) and have critical purposes in fulfilling the great plan of happiness. 
3. Satan is seeking to destroy God's plan by attacking these truths about our gender, eternal identity, and destiny.
4. Men and women were created to be complementary to each other (Their "complementary relationships and functions are fundamental to His purposes. One is incomplete without the other." --President Gordon B. Hinckley).
5. Women are equal to men and not subordinate to them.6. The power of the priesthood is limitless and is shared with those who make and keep covenants.



What other counsel are men and women given?




Juuuust kidding. 

Here is some much better counsel to men from Elder Christoffersen:
"The prophet Lehi pled with his rebellious sons, saying, 'Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men' (2 Nephi 1:21). By age, Laman and Lemuel were men, but in terms of character and spiritual maturity they were still as children. They murmured and complained if asked to do anything hard. They didn't accept anyone's authority to correct them. They didn't value spiritual things. They easily resorted to violence, and they were good at playing the victim. We see some of the same attitudes today. Some act as if a man's highest goal should be his own pleasure... Dodging commitments is considered smart, but sacrificing for the good of others, naive. For some, a life of work and achievement is optional... We who hold the priesthood of God cannot afford to drift. We have work to do. We must arise from the dust of self-indulgence and be men!"



And what do the apostles say to women?
Elder Oaks: "Don't fall for the worldly urging that women should emulate men in various masculine characteristics. This is not what the Lord created you to do. ... Your destiny is to be a wife and a mother in Zion, not a model and a street-walker in Babylon. You should dress and act accordingly."
Elder Holland: "She said the loveliest women she had known had a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity."

I love this quote! Here we see that having children is not something women are only supposed to do if they've got the time and desire for them. It is what we're supposed to do--period. I especially love that last part: "It is what God gave you time for." We're not supposed to squeeze them in around all the other things we've got going on... having and raising children should be our top priority and everything else we should try to fit in around that. After all, it is why we are here in mortality--why God gave us this time.

"As man now is, God once was..."

This, I think, is the best way to summarize unit 1 "Eternal Truths" in my Family Foundations class.

This unit was all about our eternal nature. Here are some important truths that I learned this week:

1. All of God's children are eternal in nature--we have always existed (first as intelligences, then as spirits, and then here in mortality we gain a body).2. The Plan of Salvation is also eternal--it has no beginning nor end. 3. The Plan of Salvation was a plan created for families.
4. God was once a mortal man like us, and we may in turn someday become immortal, perfected beings like Him.
5. There are two parts to us: our temporal body and our immortal spirit.
6. Truth is not relative, and remains true even if nobody believes it.I think it's really cool that we are as eternal as our Heavenly Father is (though we are not in a perfected, glorified state yet). I also think it's fascinating that God was once as we are and also lived on an earth and went though the trials that we are now going through. It really makes you wonder how many worlds and gods there are and will be. There must be an infinite amount. 

I love this quote by Elder Neal A. Maxwell: "To be too quick to the ways of this world is to be maladjusted for the next." It's a reminder that this world is only temporary and we should not be too influenced by the ways of this world but should remain true to that which is eternal. That also reminds me of something Elder Ballard once said: ""What matters most is what lasts longest. And our families are for eternity."

Finally, there is a fantastic talk on this very subject of our eternal nature by Elder Tad R. Callister called "Our Identity and Destiny." I wholeheartedly recommend it to all Christians (he mostly uses scriptures from the Old and New Testaments to back up his argument, so if you're an atheist or of some other religion I imagine you're not likely to find his talk very impressive).

Click play below to watch it! (His talk starts at about 2:20)