There were many key points in our reading this week. But one point that hit hard with me is the council given on what a couple is about to get married should do regarding their parents and how to start and gain a stronger marriage. President Kimball has an amazing quote that I want to share, "Frequently, people continue to cleave unto their mothers and their fathers, and their chums.Sometimes, mothers will not relinquish the hold they have had upon their children, and husbands as well as wives return to their mothers and fathers to obtain advice and counsel and to confide, whereas cleaving should be to the wife in most things, and all intimacies should be kept in great secrecy and privacy from others… Your married life should become independent of her folks and his folks.  You love them more than ever, you cherish their counsel, you appreciate their association, but you live your own lives, being governed by your decisions, by your own prayerful considerations after you have received the counsel from those who should give it (Spencer W. Kimball, March 1977 Ensign, pp. 4, 5)."

This week had so much advice and council on what it means to be chaste with your spouse or those who you date has been shared and given. We know the main basic way that individuals can cheat while married or dating and that is being with or kissing another person. But what about other ways we may be disloyal? What was brought up in our reading is having a friendship with someone of the opposite spouse and turning to them more than to who we are with. This was a very interesting and new concept, one that the more I read the more I believed! Even though it seems so innocent at first the problem is that it usually leads to things that may eventually end your relationship or your marriage!

Friendships are not bad but when they start becoming more important to you and more meaningful to you than the one that you have with your spouse, that is when a line has been crossed and damage has been done. Luckily we have the Lord to help and guide us and the Holy Ghost to warn us about getting in these situations, if only we listen!

In the two books that I am reading for my class there were so many incredible points and advice given through out my reading this week. What has stuck with me the most is the discussion that was given about seeing the good in our spouse. And since I am not married yet and turned this into seeing the good in my roommates and my friends and even siblings that I live by. When we think negatively of someone or we are angry and annoyed by another it is so easy to see their faults and the things that they do that we disapprove of. And from there it just gets worse and soon we cannot handle to be around that person let alone love them as we used to. H. Wallace Goddard, in his book Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage, points out the the only way to beat this is to look for the positive, look for their gifts and talents and good attributes. You start to do this and you will begin to see them as you used to. You will find that you care for them again. It may sound simple but it takes a lot of work, but imagine what the pay off is. Let us all see the good in each other!