Preparing for Marriage

Temple marriage describes the place you go to have an eternal marriage performed. Celestial marriage is being true to the sacred covenants you make in that temple marriage ceremony—living celestial principles in the marriage relationship. A celestial marriage requires, after the vows are taken, a continuing consecrated life of worthiness leading to happiness and exaltation. If we live the laws properly, we will, with another individual and with our family, be able to have a little heaven on earth. Once we are committed to a celestial marriage, we should understand and do the things that lead to it. When you are choosing your companion, make sure that both of you have a desire for a celestial marriage relationship, a desire to have a family for eternity, a desire to have a companion for eternity and to live in the presence of our Heavenly Father. Make sure that you know before you get married what that person really wants to be. You can do that by seeing if he or she goes to his or her meetings and has a testimony and can talk to you about eternal goals now.

"Brethren and sisters, material possessions and honors of the world do not endure. But your union as wife, husband, and family can. The only duration of family life that satisfies the loftiest longings of the human soul is forever. No sacrifice is too great to have the blessings of an eternal marriage. To qualify, one needs only to deny oneself of ungodliness and honor the ordinances of the temple. By making and keeping sacred temple covenants, we evidence our love for God, for our companion, and our real regard for our posterity—even those yet unborn. Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life." -Russell M. Nelson

Boys and Girls are Different!

Girls and boys are different by nature. And each also have different roles. Boys and girls were made differently so that a male and female could complete each other. I love the talk titled, "Marriage is Essential to His Eternal Plan", by Elder Bednar. He talks a lot about how we are different in ways that can help the other and how gender is an essential characteristic of our identity and purpose. I love what he says and I can't say it better, so here is a small part of what he wrote.

The eternal nature and importance of marriage can be fully understood only within the overarching context of the Father’s plan for His children. “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and . . . has a divine nature and destiny.”³ The great plan of happiness enables the spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Father to obtain physical bodies, to gain earthly experience, and to progress toward perfection.

“Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose”⁴ and in large measure defines who we are, why we are here upon the earth, and what we are to do and become. For divine purposes, male and female spirits are different, distinctive, and complementary.

After the earth was created, Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Importantly, however, God said it was “not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18;Moses 3:18), and Eve became Adam’s companion and helpmeet. The unique combination of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional capacities of both males and females were needed to implement the plan of happiness. Alone, neither the man nor the woman could fulfill the purposes of his or her creation.

By divine design, men and women are intended to progress together toward perfection and a fulness of glory. Because of their distinctive temperaments and capacities, males and females each bring to a marriage relationship unique perspectives and experiences. The man and the woman contribute differently but equally to a oneness and a unity that can be achieved in no other way. The man completes and perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn from and mutually strengthen and bless each other. “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”  -Elder Bednar

Eternal Truth

Family relationships can and will exist beyond the grave.