Earthquake: Chile

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued the following statement today following the earthquake in Chile:

"We, along with the rest of the world, are watching with concern as reports from the massive earthquake in Chile continue to unfold. As with any disaster, immediate details are difficult to confirm.

"We have confirmed that all of the Church's missionaries in Chile have reported in and are safe, including the two elders on the Juan Fernandez Island." (This is an update from a report earlier today when some missionaries had not reported in).

Enriching Your Marriage: Tithing

I learned in serving almost 20 years as bishop and as stake president that an excellent insurance against divorce is the payment of tithing. Payment of tithing seems to facilitate keeping the spiritual battery charged in order to make it through the times when the spiritual generator has been idle or is not working.

There is no great or majestic music that constantly produces the harmony of a great love. The most perfect music is a welding of two voices into one spiritual song. Marriage is the way provided by God for the fulfillment of the greatest of human needs, based upon mutual respect, maturity, selflessness, decency, commitment, and honesty. Happiness in marriage and parenthood can exceed a thousand times any other happiness.

Enriching Your Marriage: Parenthood

The soul of the marriage is greatly enriched and the spiritual growing process is greatly strengthened when a couple become parents. For couples who can have children, parenthood should bring the greatest of all happiness. Men grow because as fathers they must take care of their families. Women blossom because as mothers they must forget themselves. We understand best the full meaning of love when we become parents. However, if children do not come, couples who are nevertheless prepared to receive them with love will be honored and blessed by the Lord for their faithfulness. Our homes should be among the most hallowed of all earthly sanctuaries.

In the enriching of marriage, the big things are the little things. There must be constant appreciation for each other and thoughtful demonstration of gratitude. A couple must encourage and help each other grow. Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine.

The Savior has said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

May the presence of God be found enriching and blessing all marriages and homes, especially those of His Saints, as part of His eternal plan.

Enriching Your Marriage: Divine Presence

Of all that can bless marriages, there is one special enriching ingredient that above all else will help join a man and a woman together in a very real, sacred, spiritual sense. It is the presence of the divine in marriage. Shakespeare, speaking through Queen Isabel in King Henry the Fifth, said, “God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one” (act 5, scene 2, lines 67–68). God is also the best keeper of marriages.

There are many things that go into enriching a marriage, but some of them seem to be of the husk of the relationship. Having the companionship and enjoying the fruits of a holy and divine presence become the kernel of great happiness in marriage. Spiritual oneness is the anchor. Slow leaks in the sanctifying dimension of marriage often cause marriages to become flat tires.

I believe that divorces are increasing because in many cases the union lacks that sanctifying benediction that flows from keeping the commandments of God. Marriages can die from a lack of spiritual nourishment.

Enriching Your Marriage: Virtue

Virtue is the strong glue that holds it all together. Said the Lord, “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else” (D&C 42:22).

Enriching Your Marriage: Trust

Complete trust in each other is one of the greatest enriching factors in marriage. Nothing devastates the core of mutual trust necessary to maintain a fulfilling relationship like infidelity. There is never any justification for adultery. Despite this destructive experience, occasionally marriages are saved and families preserved. To do so requires the aggrieved party to be capable of giving unreserved love great enough to forgive and forget. It requires the errant party to want desperately to repent and actually forsake evil.

Our loyalty to our eternal companion should not be merely physical, but mental and spiritual as well. Since there are no harmless flirtations and there is no place for jealousy after marriage, it is best to avoid the very appearance of evil by shunning any questionable contact with another to whom we are not married.

-James E. Faust

Enriching Your Marriage: Prayer

Marriage relationships can be enriched by better communication. One important way is to pray together. This will resolve many of the differences, if there are any, between the couple before going to sleep. I do not mean to overemphasize differences, but they are real and do make things interesting. I believe our differences are the little pinches of salt that can make the marriage seem more flavorful.

We communicate in a thousand ways, such as a smile, a brush of the hair, a gentle touch. We should remember each day to say, “I love you.” The husband should say to his wife, “You’re beautiful.” Some other important words for both husband and wife to say, when appropriate, are, “I’m sorry.” Listening is also an excellent form of communication.

-James E. Faust

LDS Humanitarian Services: Haiti Relief Widget

Returning to Church after the Quake

Maurine and Scot Proctor, Meridian’s editor and publisher, are currently in Haiti with 125 LDS medical, construction and translation volunteers from Utah.

Much of Haiti lies in rubble. Collapsed roofs lie at angles, smashed against the floor below them. Cinder blocks slant in heaps along the roads. Some streets in Port-au-Prince look like old pictures of bombed-out Berlin after World War II. It’s a horror, an apocalypse.
Yet, amidst a shoddy neighborhood stands a jewel, the Croix-des-Missions LDS church and sounding through the air is a hymn: How Firm a Foundation.
It is a particularly well-chosen song in a land whose physical foundations could not stand the earth’s tremors, but whose Latter-day Saints have proven to be remarkably resilient. They know that though all but a handful have lost their homes, their foundation is in the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is firm.
Attending the 3-hour church block on Sunday felt remarkably normal to us. There were the Saints dressed well, many in crisp, white shirts that looked newly ironed. The deacons wore their white shirts and ties as they reverently passed the sacrament.
How can this be? Without homes, they are living on the street in hastily-assembled, makeshift shelters on any flat land that is available. Their walls may be sheets hung over ropes or pieces of cardboard. Their beds are concrete or hard earth. Everything they owned—and that already wasn’t much—has been stripped from them by an initial quake that lasted about 45 seconds and after shocks that continued for days.
Haiti, right now and for the foreseeable future, is a land sleeping out. People fill the church’s courtyards at night—and instead of woe, they laugh and talk. They have shanties on the median strip between two lanes of riotous traffic.
We asked member after member, how can you be so beautifully groomed on Sunday, given your conditions? They answered that because most everyone is now living in the street, they are indeed dirty during the week, plagued by all the ills that befalls a newly-made street person, but, they added that though they had no water to drink, they had water good enough to wash their clothes.
So there they were singing about what really is their firm foundation and looking like any other LDS congregation across the world—except they are homeless.

The Women in Our Lives

It is a scene of great beauty when a young man and a young woman join hands at the altar in a covenant before God that they will honor and love one another. Then how dismal the picture when a few months later, or a few years later, there are offensive remarks, mean and cutting words, raised voices, bitter accusations.

It need not be, my dear brothers and sisters. We can rise above these mean and beggarly elements in our lives (see Gal. 4:9). We can look for and recognize the divine nature in one another, which comes to us as children of our Father in Heaven. We can live together in the God-given pattern of marriage in accomplishing that of which we are capable if we will exercise discipline of self and refrain from trying to discipline our companion.

The women in our lives are creatures endowed with particular qualities, divine qualities, which cause them to reach out in kindness and with love to those about them. We can encourage that outreach if we will give them opportunity to give expression to the talents and impulses that lie within them. In our old age my beloved companion said to me quietly one evening, “You have always given me wings to fly, and I have loved you for it.”

-Gordon B. Hinckley

"Why Marriage Matters": Marriage leads to better overall health, Scholar Linda Waite says

There's a lot to be said for saying "I do."

And it goes beyond the romantic notions of happily ever after.

How about healthily, wealthily ever after?

Married people have higher levels of physical, emotional and cognitive health, along with greater earning potential, a sociologist told a group at BYU last week.

Linda Waite, a professor of sociology from the University of Chicago, provided hard data for the often emotionally fueled arguments in favor of traditional marriage at the sixth annual Marjorie Pay Hinckley Lecture.

"What I argue, and in my view, the research evidence supports, is that marriage itself changes people's choices," Waite said.

When their choices change, their behavior changes, which results in greater health.

"(Using the) most basic fundamental health indicator, it's very clear that married people are advantaged," she said, showing a graph with life-expectancy lines for men and women that were higher for married individuals than their single, widowed or divorced counterparts.

And this refers to traditional marriages, she said, not cohabitation, marriage-like arrangements or alternatives to marriage.

But being married doesn't just help you live longer. Other graphs showed higher levels of mental health and cognitive function for married couples than for single people living alone, with other adults or with their own children.

Read the full story HERE.

Temple Blessings

Our wedding day was more than any princess could have ever dreamed of! We were married in the beautiful Salt Lake Temple in the spring when the tulips were in full bloom. One of my fondest memories of the wedding plans was the dress. I remember picking out my dream dress and then finding out it was too much so I had to look for another dress. I put my dream dress on hold anyway and and asked my dad to come with me the next day to see it on me (you know, perhaps if they see it, they'll believe you that you can't put a price on beauty and joy!) so we got to the wedding dress shop only to hear they had sold the dress I put on hold and there wouldn't be enough time to get a new one in. I was furious- only to find the person who had bought the dress felt bad so they wrote me a card. As I opened the card, I discovered it was my father who had gone in and purchased the dress that morning. The card expressed his love for me as his daughter and his joy in seeing me so happy to be married to such a great man.

Beyond all the wedding plans and busy things that makes a wedding so stressful- (and so fun!) my fondest memory comes with that of being in the temple with my husband kneeling across the alter from me. The symbolism of kneeling across from my husband and vowing to sacrifice all that we are as a couple to invite the spirit of the Lord into our relationship is something that I hold so dear to my heart. The knowledge that I have of the atonement includes that of knowing because Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, we have an example to look towards in how to treat our spouse and how to love. And because I know the Savior died for us I know that we can return to live with our families again. This was the kicker for us on our wedding day- knowing that what we were doing, the choice we made, made it possible for our family to be forever.

I can't imagine what love will feel like once we add children to the picture or what love will feel like when we've been married for 50 years. I love my husband more and more every day and continue to find that I married someone way above anyone I ever dreamed of. He is always finding ways to serve me and make me laugh, we are often talking about how great being married is and we both know there are several great eternal reasons that our Heavenly Father designed marriage to be one of His most sacred unions between man and woman and the most essential covenant.

Nurturing Marriage

"My suggestions [to strengthen marriage] use three action verbs: to appreciate, to communicate, and to contemplate.

To appreciate—to say “I love you” and “thank you”—is not difficult. But these expressions of love and appreciation do more than acknowledge a kind thought or deed. They are signs of sweet civility. As grateful partners look for the good in each other and sincerely pay compliments to one another, wives and husbands will strive to become the persons described in those compliments.

Suggestion number two—to communicate well with your spouse—is also important. Good communication includes taking time to plan together. Couples need private time to observe, to talk, and really listen to each other. They need to cooperate—helping each other as equal partners. They need to nurture their spiritual as well as physical intimacy. They should strive to elevate and motivate each other. Marital unity is sustained when goals are mutually understood. Good communication is also enhanced by prayer. To pray with specific mention of a spouse’s good deed (or need) nurtures a marriage.

My third suggestion is to contemplate. This word has deep meaning. It comes from Latin roots: con, meaning “with,” and templum, meaning “a space or place to meditate.” It is the root from which the word temple comes. If couples contemplate often—with each other in the temple—sacred covenants will be better remembered and kept. Frequent participation in temple service and regular family scripture study nourish a marriage and strengthen faith within a family. Contemplation allows one to anticipate and to resonate (or be in tune) with each other and with the Lord. Contemplation will nurture both a marriage and God’s kingdom. The Master said, “Seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” 17

I invite each marital partner to consider these suggestions and then determine specific goals to nurture your own relationship. Begin with sincere desire. Identify those actions needed to bless your spiritual unity and purpose. Above all, do not be selfish! Generate a spirit of selflessness and generosity. Celebrate and commemorate each day together as a treasured gift from heaven."

-Russell M. Nelson

Love One Another

Love Your Wives

"Most men worry about being successful in their work, and they spend a great deal of time and effort at it. But I’ve learned through the example of such loving, considerate husbands such as Brother Young, that to be successful in our work, we have first to be successful in our homes as husbands and fathers.

And yet, too often we give more of our time and attention to our work associates outside the home than we do to our loved ones inside the home. I have come to realize that the work my wife did in our home was more important to me than any work I did outside our home.

I have also come to realize how much our wives are in constant need of our love, appreciation, companionship, and recognition. If we will meet these needs, we will enjoy a place of honor, dignity, and respect in our homes. We will receive a boundless sustaining love that will challenge us to reach down inside ourselves and bring forth the best that is within us."

-James E. Faust

A Marriage That Endures

"A number of years ago I was called to the hospital bedside of a mother in the terminal stages of a serious illness. She passed away a short time later, leaving her husband and four children, including a little boy of six. There was sorrow, deep and poignant and tragic. But shining through their tears was a faith beautiful and certain that as surely as there was now a sorrowful separation, there would someday be a glad reunion, for that marriage had begun with a sealing for time and eternity in the house of the Lord, under the authority of the holy priesthood.

Every man who truly loves a woman and every woman who truly loves a man hopes and dreams that their companionship will last forever. But marriage is a covenant sealed by authority. If that authority is of the state alone, it will endure only while the state has jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction ends with death. But add to the authority of the state the power of the endowment given by Him who overcame death, and that companionship will endure beyond life if the parties to the marriage live worthy of the promise."

-Gordon B. Hinckley

Celestial Marriage

"That proclamation on the family helps us realize that celestial marriage brings greater possibilities for happiness than does any other relationship. The earth was created and this Church was restored so that families could be formed, sealed, and exalted eternally......Harmony in marriage comes only when one esteems the welfare of his or her spouse among the highest of priorities. When that really happens, a celestial marriage becomes a reality, bringing great joy in this life and in the life to come."

-Russell M. Nelson

Challenge for February

In the spirit of Valentine's Day (which is soon approaching all you forgetful husbands), we encourage everyone to think back to your wedding day. Whether it was years ago or maybe just a few weeks ago.

What do you remember most?
Do you have the same feelings for your spouse back then that you do today?
Did you get married in the Temple?
What are the blessings you've received from your temple marriage?

-If you'd like, submit a short paragraph about the blessings of your temple marriage to:
byu.85.mission@gmail.com
-Submissions will be posted here to the blog for all the read and enjoy.

Thank you for your support.

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