Fatherhood Involvement

This week was particularly interesting to be able to think about the importance of fatherhood involvement in children's lives. Many people in society try to put down father's by degrading them and making them seem of little to none importance in society. In many different studies that have been done we are able too see how father's are very valuable not only in society but likewise in the home. Fatherhood involvement can make a life changing impact in the lives of the children. I know that for me personally I have been very blessed to have been raised by a father who has been very involved in my life. He made me a priority in his life, which has made me feel his love for me more as his daughter. I think that throughout the years his involvement in my life has helped me to have greater respect for my father because I know that he genuinely care about him. 

There is a talk that was given by Elder Perry, which I have really appreciated that shows how in society many are trying to make fatherhood not seem like an important part of society. 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/fatherhood-an-eternal-calling?lang=eng

It is amazing to see how society wants to get rid of the importance of father's. I am grateful for my father and all of the different events that he attended in my behalf to support me. I think that is something that I will always be grateful that he did for me. It is interesting to see how families who have both the wife and the husband working tend to have less money than they would if they would have had just the father working. This occurs because they feel that they can afford things more easily because they have two incomes, which is not always the case. I think this is something important to consider because we can really put ourselves into a bind even if we aren't careful. 

Communication

It amazing how hard it can be to communicate in a world where we have so much technology and opportunities to use for communication. Something that I began to realize this past week is how hard it can be for a technological society to communicate. In class we discussed how texting can be a huge problem in terms of communication because we can only read the words that a person writes, while in communication face-to-face we can listen to the persons tone and also the non-verbal cues. This can make communication very challenging especially in a society where texting is where most conversations seem to take place. Every person has a different way of expressing themselves and the way that they choose to communicate. I think that a lot of times in relationships there are struggles within the relationship because one person expects the other person to change the way that they communicate. It is important to note those differences and to learn to work around them so that they can work in greater unity together despite their differences. 

I think that one of the great gift of life that sometime we don't look at as a gift is conflict. Conflict can help to provide better understanding and help us to create stronger bonds to our spouse or family. If we decide to let conflict be a positive in our life it will become a positive thing and try to learn from these different experiences. It really is up to us in the end whether we will take what we have learned and use it in a good way or turn it into a negative experience. I am grateful for different conflicts in my life because they have helped to strengthen different relationships in my life and I am better able to appreciate those relationships with those people now. 

I had an experience with a person that I was having a hard time with and one day the problem between the two of us was very clear to see. With this conflict we were able to talk about the issue and see what we could do to help the situation to make it more enjoyable for the both of us. At times we will have to compromise our own wants to maintain the happiness of another person. A lot of times I have come to see that the compromise that I thought was a huge compromise for me ended up being a bigger blessing and helped me to grow personally. From these instances we can learn and see how it has blessed our lives to realize that it was worth it in the end. 

Coping with stress as a family

This past week I have been thinking a lot about some of the different tragedies that families have to face. Some include financial struggles, loss of a loved one such as a grandparent or a child, moving to a new place, the birth of a child and so on. All of these things can be both a blessing and a struggle for a family unit. It was interesting to be learning about the different crises that families face because one of the most challenging one for people to overcome is the death of a child because those tend to be the most unexpected. I have been thinking about that a lot this past week and how I would feel if I lost a child. I know that it would be difficult to comprehend because as humans we expect that our parents and grandparents will die before we will, but that is not always the case.

Yesterday would have marked the 22nd birthday of one of my closest friends named Rachel. She passed away unexpectedly in a car accident that took her life away. I have been thinking a lot about how here family must have felt and still feels to this day even though it has been almost four years since she passed away. Thinking about all of the opportunities that she wasn't able to experience must be devastating for her parents to think about knowing this accident could have been prevented if they didn't allow her to go with her friends on that road trip. Looking at these types of situations there are always the what if's as there are to everything. There will always be i'm sure as in most tragedies be the thoughts in our minds "what would have happened if we did such and such instead". Something that I am realizing that no matter how much we try to see what "could have happened" in the end God's will, will be done. Life doesn't go as planned and in this moments of stress is when we can not only draw closer to our families, but also to our Savior Jesus Christ.

I was thinking also about that same year when my best friend passed away a few months previously my grandma Carter passed away very unexpectedly in a car accident as well. I remember when it happened and looking at my dad who look so sad although he never would admit to it. His eyes seemed heavy as I could see that he was realizing that he no longer had either of his parents alive anymore. The day before he was asked to give my grandma a blessing but he wasn't feeling well, so my uncle went and had someone else join him to give grandma the blessing. The next day when she was driving to church she passed out as she was driving and hit the light pole over in front of our church building. It was kind of funny because as someone was saying the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and said amen all of the lights in the building went out. Later we came to find out why the lights went out and that it was caused by grandma. I remember going to the hospital after she died and looking at her with a tube stuck down her throat. That wasn't the grandma Carter that I remembered. It wasn't the funny, witty and smart grandma that I knew and it made me so sad to see her in that condition. Something that I will be forever grateful for was I believe the next day or so my dad took me out to dinner personally and we talked about the death of my grandma and it gave me comfort that it was okay to feel sad and that I wasn't alone. Although we all may face crises in our life we have the choice to determine whether these crises will bring us together closer as families or if they will create distance between the families.

Intimacy and Fidelity

This past week has been very opening to me and has helped me to see what I want to do in order to have complete fidelity between me and my future spouse. The main theme that kept hitting home for me was the fact that we need to establish very clear boundaries. If we have these boundaries we will be more aware of when we have stepped outside the boundaries and when we need to correct ourselves. I have been thinking a lot this week how our thoughts are so powerful and if we allow Satan into our minds and hearts he will try to slowly but surely lead us down the path of infidelity, which is a devastating path to follow.

In order for me to prepare myself better for marriage something that I decided to do to make sure that my mind stays focused and doesn't get bogged up with the things of the world was to delete specific apps on my phone to insure that I have things that will uplifts my thoughts and help me to be sure that I am doing things of value instead of wasting my time looking at my Facebook newsfeed. It was very liberating deleting some of those apps because I think that it is going to help me to focus more on the Lord, the person that I am dating and my school work. I am excited to see how it is going to help me because I think that it will end up being a blessing for me in the long run. I notice that it is so easy to get distracted with what other people are doing and compare yourself and your relationships. That is what Satan wants to happen, but God wants us to be ourselves and live life joyous and fully. I think this will help me to more capable of having joy because I will be genuinely happy with who I am and not worry about what others are doing.

Another thing this week that struck me was an article that we read on sex education in New York and how graphic it seemed to be. It terrified me honestly to think that some children are receiving such knowledge at school because that it something that I want to teach my future children in a very loving and sacred manner. There is a wonderful tool that the church has written to help parents educate their children, so they won't have to worry as much when their children hear different things at school.

https://www.lds.org/manual/a-parents-guide?lang=eng

This is a wonderful tool to help us to understand what we can do to help them understand their own sexuality. I want to teach this to my children and I want them to know that I am open and willing to talk to them about this topic, so that if they hear something at school they can know that I care enough to help them understand in a gospel way.

Fidelity is a huge struggle in the times that we live in now. I think one of the big things that she people fail to realize is that the relationships that we have with people of the opposite sex can create the biggest issues of infidelity. That is something that can be so easily avoided if the boundaries are placed first, so that the couple knows that they can't have those relationships with anyones besides their spouse. I think that something I never realized before this week that by talking to other people about your relationship struggles is crossing the boundaries set with your spouse. It makes so much sense because it isn't fair to your spouse that you are sharing your problems with others instead of going up lovingly to your spouse and talking to them about it. This week in class was amazing and I have been able to reevaluate some different things in my own life that I am planning on changing.