Putting it all together

John 7:24 I can judge if I judge righteously.

A lot of people think that they should avoid judging anything like the plague. I have heard many times where I would say something about someone and they would say "don't judge her/him!" but I feel like it is ok to judge things. I think the scriptures just mention that we can't make a final judgment. there was a missionary on the mission where I served who would always yell at people and say "Terrestrial!" if we did anything wrong. It was quite annoying. And in his case, he was condemning people to a final judgment. He should not do that. But if I had a guy that had tattoos, cuts on their arms, obscene language and pictures on their clothes apply to babysit my kid compared to a girl who is a child development major, then I would choose the girl. Most likely she would be the better candidate to babysit kids. But I can't know for sure who would be a better babysitter. The guy with the tattoos might have grown up with 12 other siblings and might be a great babysitter while the girl in the child development class might have homicidal tendencies.  But chances are those would not be the case. I appreciate that our church is not a stickler for judging. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I feel like we are pretty reasonable and logical people and just want to do the best we can. I don't ever hear from people in the church I attend that "I shouldn't judge them." But I also don't judge people out loud very often either. 

I feel like that we are left to judge for ourselves many things. But the final judgment of someone should be left to only God. I feel like the blessings of my church (LDS) giving us the ability to judge had helped me a lot in my life. I can judge what restaurants would be better, what friends I should hang out with, and schools that I should attend. 

The Family FAML 100

Blog post on finding an Eternal Companion.
First off, you have to understand that no one is perfect. That you have to be able to understand that people all come with their own skeletons in the closet. some of those skeletons might be a little too much to handle or they might be ok to handle. It depends on you and what you can deal with. I remember thinking to myself that no one would want to marry me because of some mistakes that I made in my life. I would go on these dates and I would tell the girl the 2nd date about some struggles I had had in my life. Almost every one of those girls never talked to me again. Except for one girl. She was ok with my struggle and decided to marry me. It was the best thing that I ever did. She saw the potential in me and knew that I was a hard worker and that I wasn't going to let my flaws bring me down. Marry potential not perfection.

Gospel Topic: 3 Separate Beings.

This week in my class we read in the new testament. Some thing s that stuck out to me was when John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus. It seems obvious to me that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are 3 separate beings. You have Jesus going into the water, God speaking from above, and a dove flying around during the baptism that represents the holy ghost. I talked to a lot of people during my mission about the Trinity and it was all just so confusing. I like how Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ as 2 separate beings. It made our way of discussing the Godhead much easier. It just seems more logical. There are many scriptures as well that prove that Jesus and God are separate beings. But for some reason, people still believe that they are all one. I know that there are a few scriptures that seem to mention God being one, and some creed made that doctrine official hundreds of years ago. But I just wish people would be able to open their hearts more to the possibility of God being separate.

Related Gospel Topic: Missionary Work

I served my mission in the Canada Toronto Mission. It was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. I remember thinking to myself "there has got to be a better way to spread the gospel instead of knocking on doors all day." Because most of the converts you get from knocking on doors are also on welfare. That's what it seems at least in my experience. I know that we are some of the few churches to go out and spread the message of Jesus Christ and the only church to spread the message of the restored gospel. So it makes what we do very important for everyone to come and hear the message. There are a few things that are being done right now to hasten the work like facebook, and social media. But I wish that there was more. I wonder what missionary work will be like in 30 years. Will we keep knocking on doors? Will all missions be paid for by tithing money? Will we not do missionary work the traditional way and just do missionary work from our computers? there is a lot of room for more possibilities on how to hasten the work. I'm curious what the church has in store for the next 30 years.

Divorce

This week we talked a lot about divorce. America has the highest divorce rate in the world. This would seem shocking to people and some people might think that this could be because couples might not have proper marriage skills here in the US.  That's what I thought. But, Brother Williams, my teacher in class, said that "the reason we have the most divorces is because we also have the most marriages." that made sense to me.
People should do their best to not get divorced. If a couple have children involved and want to get a divorce they should seek help from counselors and do everything they can to stay a family. But if being divorced actually helps the children, then they should get divorced. I was reading that nowadays many reasons for divorce consist of "we don't get along anymore, he has changed, I'm bored, etc" Those are very soft reasons to get a divorce and can be helped very easily. Hard reasons to get divorced would be anything that consists of the 3 A's. Adultery, Addiction, and Abuse. If any of those 3 A's is involved in a marriage, the divorce is justified.
After a marriage has been through many years together, it is easier to gain more loyalty to each other within the marriage. The most vulnerable time within a marriage is within the first 2 years of being married. There is a lot of adjustment within that time and any conflicts or pressure can cause a lot of stress for a newly wed couple. People have to understand that when they get married that things take time to get used to. Believe that if challenges come up within a marriage to not think about getting a divorce but to work through the problems together.

Fathers and Finances

It is common to think that the father provides for the family financially and the mother takes care of the children. In the discussion that I had in class this week and the readings, I learned that it is very important to have these roles be played in the family. From the readings, it showed that a mother who forgoes education to stay home with the kids is just as important than a woman who goes on to get an education. Because the kids that she raise are the future generation and can help generations to come.  I know that in my family, my mother stayed home with us for most of our lives. We were brought up very well. But I think we could have been raised better if my mom had continued to stay home with the family rather then go out and get an education. I think it was a sacrifice, my mom has a great education and job that really helps the family now. She now is a counselor/therapist and really is able to help with any personal problems that I may have. My father has always been such a hard worker and has provided much of the family with the financial income. He has been a great example to me on how to be a great father.

Stress in the Family

Something that was taught this week in class that I seemed to learn really well was the teacher taught about how stress on an individual affects everyone in the family. He had a few volunteers in the class go up and hold hands in a circle.  The teacher would then pull on one of the volunteers and say stuff like "work was hard today.... you don't have enough money to pay the bills....etc." and then he would go and pull on someone else in the circle and say stuff like "that girl at school is such a bully.... you failed that class.... etc" all the while pulling on that person in the circle. It showed that when one person is going under a lot of stress in the family, everyone else can feel stress too.

I feel like in my family we seem to handle stress very well. Or we just don't have many things to be stressed about. We don't do drugs, No one has any significant diseases, And I think we do pretty well financially as well which helps not have too much stress. A lot of times it's good to talk about the stress you are having with members of your family. sometimes they can help or they might be able to understand some of the difficulties you are going through.