Were You Raised Right?

This week in one of our lessons, we talked about how children need to be taught how to cooperate, respect, be responsible, and have courage. The last one struck me and a surprise. Whenever I think about necessary characteristics, I never think about courage but as I think about it more and more it only makes sense. People need to have a back bone and stand up for what they believe in. They need to have courage that it's ok not to do drugs even though your best friends are. They need to have courage to wear modest clothing when girls around them at an all LDS school are wearing skirts that are less than appropriate. They need to have the courage to stand up to parents who are criticizing them for believing when their parents have gone astray. How interesting that we don't talk about courage more often. My first semester at BYU-I, the hardest adjustment for me was seeing members sin... badly. I grew up in an area with hardly any members and so it wouldn't have been as big of a deal for people around me back home to do those things but I expect and was naive about the mormon population. I just thought everyone would be good! I'm just so grateful that I had the courage to stay home on some Friday nights instead of going to a dance party or disobey the honor code. Courage is a gift and should not be taken for granted.

What are you trying to say?

Part of this weeks lessons were on communication. I thought it was highly fascinating that only like 14% of the things we communicate are the words we say. The rest of communication is left up to interpretation of tone and nonverbal things like body language. I never realized how true this was. As I think about it, I can say just about anything with a smile on my face being light-hearted and people would interpret that as being cheerful even if what I'm saying is incredibly depressing. I think this is why I've gotten in so much trouble with sarcasm. Naturally, my family is very happy and we usually don't have major problems or contention so it is easy for us to be sarcastic and joke around with each other but I've learned that not everyone is that way... It takes me by surprise every single time someone misunderstands my sarcasm with a serious comment. I think it surprises me because things that I say sarcastically, I would never say honestly. I now understand why the brethren have warned against sarcasm and to watch what we say very carefully.

The Trouble with Trouble

This week we talked about stressor events and crisis in families. Every single week I am simply astonished at how blessed I truly am. I can't imagine what it would be like to be physically or sexually abused by anyone, let alone someone in my family. The thought is just repulsive and actually a little bit sickening to think about and we talked about sometimes it's hard to keep children in the family when something like that happens because often times the rest of their extended family has a problem with it too. Maybe I'm just completely oblivious but my family doesn't have problems with much of anything we talk about in class and I feel so awful and sorry for people who have to go through that. I absolutely loved what Brother Williams mentioned at the end of Friday's class when he said, "Observe realistically what is going on in the situation, without your emotions and describe what is happening". I loved that because I know that a lot of times what we are experiencing is just our emotions instead of the actual situation and that can cause a lot of problems. It makes me think of why some families get caught up in all this abuse nonesense and why some families don't have problems with it. I think a little part of it is just a blessing from Heavenly Father but I think the biggest part of what makes the difference is the family's obedience to the gospel. That will protect families more than anything else could.

The Dirty Deed

In light of it being November and the month of Thanksgiving, I will begin my post with something I am grateful for, which is only having one day of class. Normally that would be a sad thing but noting how this week we were supposed to be talking about sex, not having class is a great thing. It avoids much comfortableness and awkwardness. So in the one day of class, I learned how sex can be a very giving thing which is never talked about! Ever. We also talked about how males and females perk at different times and the post-deed is very different for each other. I think both spouses knowing this would avoid a lot of hurt feelings and make intercourse that much sweeter. The thing is, I don't really want to talk about this anymore. I'm getting slightly nauseous so... I guess that's it.