Lesson for September 11, 2016

Lesson for September 11, 2016 Today our lesson was given by Maggie Kopp on Chapter 16, “Marriage—An Eternal Partnership.” Maggie reminded us about relationships from last week’s lesson. Some of the qualities with those relationships are that they are long-term (really long term), there is respect, honesty, love, free agency, enjoy being around them, traditions together, you can depend on each other, trust, laughter, sincerity, want to be each other’s friend, generosity, and others to be talked about later. She had some quotes from President Hunter. “It is not good for man or woman to be alone.” Neither can reach eternal blessings without the other. As baptism is necessary to enter the church, so temple marriage is necessary for eternal life. We need to see it as essential because it is central to the gospel. It is a commandment. It will help us become exalted. It takes a man and a woman to be their very best. It takes us both to do it. We have to have a goal to be a celestial person and look forward to being with a person who is celestial, too, and who wouldn’t want to be married to a celestial person. Sometimes we are not the normal happy family. How do we balance out the idea that we may not be the ideal. Lisa Anderson said she has been offered other opportunities, such as serving in the temple as much as she do, so we all have our own paths. We have to find out what those paths are. So many young males have died before adulthood—many more than young females—so they are promised marriage in eternity. Marriage is a learned behavior, according to President Hunter. All the things we listed at first, those are learned behaviors as well. We learn relationship skills, such as saying the right thing to our spouse or teenager. We had to learn how to get over a rejection, or breakup, or other hardships. There is a lot of adjusting and learning to do on a daily basis. Everyone has to work. Sometimes we can make it fun and enjoyable, even with the hard work. If you are a baker, you still need to go through the process of mixing and baking and presenting the baked goods to others. Some people may be better at some things, than others, but we can all work on things. President Hunter spoke of some qualities that are essential: charity and patience, oneness of heart, fidelity, tenderness and respect, attentive listening, and selflessness. Charity and patience is especially difficult. There is a scripture that you can pray for charity and that kind of love can tide us over. Chelsea’s mother is good at this. Her father had an accident with a brain injury while they already had four children. Her mother said she had to remember that her father did not choose to have a brain injury. Her mother’s charity spills over onto her kids. Prayer and being accepting is key. We have to be reciprocal and talk together and get on the same page. It takes work to get together on a day-to-day basis. Maggie had a good friend in California that she could go for months without talking, but it eventually got so where they were not on the same page. Maggie realized she had to keep up the communication to maintain their relationship. One of the great stories is Adam and Eve and how the temptations came when they were not together, but when they were together they could not be tempted. We need to share goals, too, so you can work on them together. Being articulate can help, so being up front in the way couples interact—maybe even more obvious than we think we need to be. Being humble and being OK with your partner doing as well as you can. Being considerate and positive toward each other. Ask each other how each feels loved so we know how to show love to the other one. Wherever we are in our relationships, we need to remember that these relationships make us more celestial. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s easy. It’s still work.