I'm especially grateful for the Veteran's who fight for us, so that we don't have to fight. Freedom isn't free. Our military are paying the cost right now, our Veteran's have already paid the cost. Thank you service men and women.
Tuesday, 11 November 2014
Honoring My Veterans
My (Leah's) sweet grandparents were dating when Pearl Harbor was bombed
in 1941. Granpy signed up for the Navy and went off to war. The only thing that kept Granpy and Granny in touch was letters. Granpy would write home coded messages about what he could share. Granny would write regularly and encourage him. In 1944 they got married on a short furlough, they were married 2 days before Granpy went back to war. Just as a side note, Granny still writes so many letters today. She always sends birthday cards to everybody on their birthday, Christmas, Granpy's birthday, and any occasion she feels like. Since Granpy died twenty plus years ago, she sends everybody a memorial letter about him each year.
I'm especially grateful for the Veteran's who fight for us, so that we don't have to fight. Freedom isn't free. Our military are paying the cost right now, our Veteran's have already paid the cost. Thank you service men and women.
More pictures of my Veteran's on my blog here.
I'm especially grateful for the Veteran's who fight for us, so that we don't have to fight. Freedom isn't free. Our military are paying the cost right now, our Veteran's have already paid the cost. Thank you service men and women.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Review: The Peacegiver
"The Peacegiver" by James L Ferrell
The couple in this book seemed just like Ryan and I. They'd been married 12 years, got married in the Los Angeles Temple a year after the man returned from his mission, etc. Then, I read on and hated how their marriage was. It wasn't really like ours at all. They had been fighting for years and spent lots of time not speaking to each other. They were both about ready to separate. All I can say is, marriage is not meant to be like the broken relationship described in this book. Marriage is meant to be a happy, rewarding union between man and woman. The book showed how it could be too. What I liked was the idea that whose fault their marital problems were, didn't matter. The Savior had already accepted their sins and the fallout from those sins upon himself. So, it was each individual's job to forgive, regardless of whether the other one forgave. In this way, the book was very uplifting.
The book mentioned how marital sins were addictive like alcoholic or drug sins. The marital sins like "not speaking to each other", "thinking oneself superior to the other", "hateful words" and such changes a person to feel like they are justified in doing these sins and makes them commit more and worse sins of that nature as if the sin itself were addictive. It's only through the Savior's atonement that we can get out of vicious cycles of destructive behavior that destroy our marriages. At times during the read, I found myself thinking, thankfully I wasn't stuck with a husband like that. But, a marriage relationship is like a living thing. It needs attention, love, time, patience, nurturing, etc, to grow well. Our marriage could have gone that way had we let it. I have a daily choice in my relationship how to treat my spouse. I don't have the choice how he treats me, but I can do a lot to shape how he wants to treat me. I certainly am in complete control of how I treat him. The book showed how we each have our own responsibility to make our marriage the best it possibly can be. The Savior will help us with that. If we rely on Him, I believe we can have what marriage is meant to be: a happy, rewarding union between man and woman.
The couple in this book seemed just like Ryan and I. They'd been married 12 years, got married in the Los Angeles Temple a year after the man returned from his mission, etc. Then, I read on and hated how their marriage was. It wasn't really like ours at all. They had been fighting for years and spent lots of time not speaking to each other. They were both about ready to separate. All I can say is, marriage is not meant to be like the broken relationship described in this book. Marriage is meant to be a happy, rewarding union between man and woman. The book showed how it could be too. What I liked was the idea that whose fault their marital problems were, didn't matter. The Savior had already accepted their sins and the fallout from those sins upon himself. So, it was each individual's job to forgive, regardless of whether the other one forgave. In this way, the book was very uplifting.
The book mentioned how marital sins were addictive like alcoholic or drug sins. The marital sins like "not speaking to each other", "thinking oneself superior to the other", "hateful words" and such changes a person to feel like they are justified in doing these sins and makes them commit more and worse sins of that nature as if the sin itself were addictive. It's only through the Savior's atonement that we can get out of vicious cycles of destructive behavior that destroy our marriages. At times during the read, I found myself thinking, thankfully I wasn't stuck with a husband like that. But, a marriage relationship is like a living thing. It needs attention, love, time, patience, nurturing, etc, to grow well. Our marriage could have gone that way had we let it. I have a daily choice in my relationship how to treat my spouse. I don't have the choice how he treats me, but I can do a lot to shape how he wants to treat me. I certainly am in complete control of how I treat him. The book showed how we each have our own responsibility to make our marriage the best it possibly can be. The Savior will help us with that. If we rely on Him, I believe we can have what marriage is meant to be: a happy, rewarding union between man and woman.
Sunday, 2 November 2014
Investing in the One You've Got
It takes work to stay married. But, doesn't it take even more work to divorce and remarry?
After a divorce, I often see both spouses eventually try to remarry. The effort they put into remarrying translates to: lots of money, time, hope and attention spent on lots of dates. They'll spend tons of time, money and attention into their appearance - working out, getting new clothes, haircuts, etc to look like a good catch. In fact they're willing to become their best self, so that somebody will fall in love with them. Anybody who has dated knows that lots of these dates are going to be awful. That's just how it goes sometimes, especially while you are working on improving yourself. Often the dates can be so awful that the individual may begin to wonder if they should continue the process, after all it's really taking up a lot of their resources. Then, often after soooo much work, they find a match that works. They put a lot more time, money, hope and attention into this person, while continuing to work on themselves and hopefully end up marrying to them.
This pattern shows up so frequently, and I always wonder what would have happened if both of them had put all that money, time, hope and attention into each other when things started looking bad. And what if they invested all that time, money and attention into their current spouse? This would be a good point to work on their appearance as well - working out, getting new clothes, new haircuts, etc, to look their best for their spouse, as an offering to their spouse when the relationship is rocky. Not just working on their appearance, but also trying to make themselves a person worth loving. Sure, they might get some awful "dates" out of their spouse at first. But, if they continue they might realize that they are investing in the individual that made them fall in love and get married in the first place. They also might become the individual their spouse fell in love with in the first place. If they continue investing so much time, hope, money and attention into their spouse, they might just fall in love again. After all, they already went through the process of falling in love with this individual once, filtering that spouse out from the rest of the human race as one being a great match.
Please, try putting a lot of work into your relationship, before divorcing and putting a lot of work into other relationships.
After a divorce, I often see both spouses eventually try to remarry. The effort they put into remarrying translates to: lots of money, time, hope and attention spent on lots of dates. They'll spend tons of time, money and attention into their appearance - working out, getting new clothes, haircuts, etc to look like a good catch. In fact they're willing to become their best self, so that somebody will fall in love with them. Anybody who has dated knows that lots of these dates are going to be awful. That's just how it goes sometimes, especially while you are working on improving yourself. Often the dates can be so awful that the individual may begin to wonder if they should continue the process, after all it's really taking up a lot of their resources. Then, often after soooo much work, they find a match that works. They put a lot more time, money, hope and attention into this person, while continuing to work on themselves and hopefully end up marrying to them.
This pattern shows up so frequently, and I always wonder what would have happened if both of them had put all that money, time, hope and attention into each other when things started looking bad. And what if they invested all that time, money and attention into their current spouse? This would be a good point to work on their appearance as well - working out, getting new clothes, new haircuts, etc, to look their best for their spouse, as an offering to their spouse when the relationship is rocky. Not just working on their appearance, but also trying to make themselves a person worth loving. Sure, they might get some awful "dates" out of their spouse at first. But, if they continue they might realize that they are investing in the individual that made them fall in love and get married in the first place. They also might become the individual their spouse fell in love with in the first place. If they continue investing so much time, hope, money and attention into their spouse, they might just fall in love again. After all, they already went through the process of falling in love with this individual once, filtering that spouse out from the rest of the human race as one being a great match.
Please, try putting a lot of work into your relationship, before divorcing and putting a lot of work into other relationships.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Service In Marriage
"He who serves in some things, is good for somethings.
He who serves in no things, is good for nothing."
-Hugo E Martinez
Try out service more in your marriage. There's always plenty of work to share.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Going Through Rough Times
Before we got married, we were studying at Brigham Young University. I always had lots of roommates to talk to about everything. I loved staying up late talking with them. When I was engaged to marry Ryan I thought late night talks were a thing I'd have to give up. I just couldn't imagine Ryan being into that. Perhaps I couldn't imagine it, because we were required by the school to keep a sort of curfew! We talked a lot on our dates, but I just thought it would be different. After we got married I was very pleasantly surprised by our first fun late night talk. Now we continue to talk regularly in the evenings after the kids go to bed.
Recently I went through some incredibly difficult things that I can't talk about yet. It was a critical time for me, so it was a critical time for our marriage. Lots of late night talks with Ryan helped get me through the hard times. I called him my psychologist. I love that we can talk together. Big problems that one partner is having can bring a couple closer together or further apart. For us, it brought us closer together thanks to talking everything out. Good communication is vital for marriages.
Recently I went through some incredibly difficult things that I can't talk about yet. It was a critical time for me, so it was a critical time for our marriage. Lots of late night talks with Ryan helped get me through the hard times. I called him my psychologist. I love that we can talk together. Big problems that one partner is having can bring a couple closer together or further apart. For us, it brought us closer together thanks to talking everything out. Good communication is vital for marriages.
Sunday, 17 August 2014
Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln
Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln may have had a difficult marriage. It's said that they couldn't communicate well. When something went wrong Mary would scream and throw things. Abe would just withdraw and walk away. I wanted to find out more about this marriage. I learned that they had trouble with food too.
Mary had been raised on fancy expensive delicacies. Abe on the other hand had been raised on very he plain inexpensive food. Abe wanted cornbread, mush, bacon, eggs and milk. Honey was a delicacy for him. When Mary set out food such as "Aspic of Tongue, Pate de Foie Gras, Turkey stuffed with Truffles, and all sorts of wild game, such as venison, pheasant, or canvasback duck" Abe would probably just pick at his food. Learn more about what went wrong. The food disagreements were probably a side-effect of bad communication and lack of compromise in their marriage.
Ryan and I had our very first disagreement as newlyweds about food. One of us wanted canned corn, while the other wanted frozen corn. That disagreement was solved long ago when I developed an allergy to a preservative in canned food. Today we eat corn-on-the-cob or frozen corn.
In our kitchen now there are onions which I bought just to make Ryan happy. There is fresh broccoli Ryan bought to make my favorite dish, Beef with Broccoli. And I just hastily cooked up the last of the potatoes, because we always disagree on how to store and wash them. So, I guess our food represents our marriage. Mostly we try to please each other, but we definitely have our disagreements.
So, does the food in your house represent compromises, tolerance or problems between husband and wife?
Information about the food of Abraham and Mary was taken from The Food Timeline . Also from ---The Presidents' Cookbook, Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks [Funk & Wagnall's:New York] 1968 (p. 236-7).
Mary had been raised on fancy expensive delicacies. Abe on the other hand had been raised on very he plain inexpensive food. Abe wanted cornbread, mush, bacon, eggs and milk. Honey was a delicacy for him. When Mary set out food such as "Aspic of Tongue, Pate de Foie Gras, Turkey stuffed with Truffles, and all sorts of wild game, such as venison, pheasant, or canvasback duck" Abe would probably just pick at his food. Learn more about what went wrong. The food disagreements were probably a side-effect of bad communication and lack of compromise in their marriage.
Ryan and I had our very first disagreement as newlyweds about food. One of us wanted canned corn, while the other wanted frozen corn. That disagreement was solved long ago when I developed an allergy to a preservative in canned food. Today we eat corn-on-the-cob or frozen corn.
In our kitchen now there are onions which I bought just to make Ryan happy. There is fresh broccoli Ryan bought to make my favorite dish, Beef with Broccoli. And I just hastily cooked up the last of the potatoes, because we always disagree on how to store and wash them. So, I guess our food represents our marriage. Mostly we try to please each other, but we definitely have our disagreements.
So, does the food in your house represent compromises, tolerance or problems between husband and wife?
Information about the food of Abraham and Mary was taken from The Food Timeline . Also from ---The Presidents' Cookbook, Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks [Funk & Wagnall's:New York] 1968 (p. 236-7).
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Tiny Thoughts
"Marriage is a gift from God to us, the quality of our marriage is our gift to God." Elder Clayton
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