Kirk and I were asked to speak in church yesterday! YAY! We love speaking...don't know why, it's just fun for us I guess :) We last spoke in August so it really hasn't been that long! But we were excited at the opportunity we got! Maybe it's studying Church Doctrine together that we like? It gives us a gospel topic to focus on and talk about all week? It gives us the opportunity to testify of the truths we know? I know I like it because it gives me opportunity to learn from Kirk, and there is not better person to teach me than my husband. It lets us grow together spiritually and it strengthens our marriage.
As soon as Kirk gets the chance he'll put his talk up here, but until then here's mine:
Nurturing Love in a Marriage
Rewind back to the time when you very first met your spouse.... where were you? what were you doing?.... what was it that very first sparked your interest in him or her?...
Kirk is from one side of the Salt Lake Valley-I'm from the other, and one night we met right in the middle. I was with one of my good girlfriends and we were looking for a good time! We heard about this Country Swing Dance Studio in downtown Salt Lake ,and we had heard it was a lottt of fun, so we decided to go find out what this FUN was all about! Neither of us knew how to swing dance or anything close too it, but we were up for the adventure. I still remember seeing Kirk across the dance floor and I remember he looked dang good in a pair of jeans! He was with one of his best friends who had just got home from a mission. I remember that he was the first to ask me to dance that night. I told him I had know clue what to do or how to do it and in my mind I just KNEW I was going to embaress myself! He looked at me and laughed. Then still smiling he took my hand and taught me. It wasn't long before he was throwin me around like a rag doll! But I do remember leaving that night feeling really really good about myself. He had this way of making me happy with who I was and I loved that feeling. That was another thing that caught me about him!
Well, he got my number that night then disappeared for 3 months.
It wasn't until after Christmas when he called me again and asked if I wanted to come up to his cabin for the weekend. He always throws a big snow party for New Years every year. And boy was it fun! This was really when I started to learn about Kirk and admire these great qualities he had. We spent a couple days together and I learned that he was a RM who had a testimony but he showed me that it was still alive and growing. I knew that he Loved God, and that was something huge and important to me...something I wanted! He was so eager and willing to help everyone. He was always prepared, honest and he was a hard worker. He was all over the place fixing snowmobiles and helping with anything he could! I noticed that he had good friends, and I also knew he knew how to have fun. I was even more impressed!
This was just the start of the things I admired about him, where I believe my love for him started to grow.
A Jewish author, I didn't write down his name because I can't pronounce it, but he wrote:
"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet- fails so regularly as love."
Brothers and sisters isn't it awful to hear such a thing? But I am heart broken to say, I believe this quote holds truth to it. Especially in this world. We see marriages right and left that don't last, people defiling Gods most sacred sealing- that of familes... there are many reasons why people fall out of love... so I ask you today, What makes love last?
The Jewish man continues...
"Love is the attachment that results from deeply appreciating anothers goodness."
We all have goodness inside ourselves. I've shared with you the good things about Kirk that I appreciated in him when we first met. And as our marriage progresses I always find more!
Elder Marlin K Jensen of the Seventy said:
"Nothing is more inspiring in todays world of easily dissolved marriages than to observe a husband and a wife quietly appreciating and enjoying each others friendship year in and year out as they experience together the blessings and trials of mortality."
Well how do we show we really appreciate each other?
My big brother and his girlfriend are in town from Salt Lake this weekend and I asked them how they show one another that they appreciate each other. They said "I think it's in the little things." When they said that I thought 'that is absolutley right.'
True to the Faith states:
"Expressions of love may include being kind to each other, listening to each other, mourning with each other, comforting one another, serving one another, praying for each other, sharing the gospel with each other and being one anothers friend."
When Kirk and I were seald in the Draper temple our sealer took us into a separate room of the temple to share and testify with us about the sacred things we were going to participate in that day. He told us, "If you want to love your eternal companion more, love God."
In John Chapter 4 we learn that God is love, and in Romans we learn that the closer we approach God-the more profoundly we experience love.
I want to quote a scripture found in Jeremiah 29:13. It is "Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye search for me with all your heart."
Pres Uchtdorf:
"However, seeking God with all our hearts implies much more than simply offering a prayer pronouncing a few words inviting God into our lives. 'For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.' We can make a great production of saying that we know God. We can proclaim publicity that we love him. Nevertheless, if we don't ovey Him, all is in vain, for 'he that saith, I know Him and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him."
Brothers and Sisters we increase our love for Heavenly Father and demonstrate that love by aligning our thoughts and actions with Gods world.
Uchtdorf cont..
"His pure love directs and encourages us to become more pure and Holy. It inspires us to walk in righteousness-not out of fear or obligation but out of an earnest desire to become more like Him. By doing so, we can be born again and cleansed by blood, even the blood of the Only Begotten; that we might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world and eternal-might I add "Celestial" life- inthe world to come, even immortal- and I add again, Immortal Glory with our Eternal Companion."
I want to leave you with a quote from Brigham young that I've really taken to heart sense I've heard it. I think my husband is tired of hearing me repeat this, but he said:
"Our families are not yet ours. The Lord has committed them to us to see how we treat them. Only if we are faithful will they be given to us forever."
Brothers and Sisters I challenge you to look at your marriage and find one thing you can change, one thing you can fix or bring back... and do it. If you can't think of something, get down on your knees and pray to Heavenly Father. He will tell you what you can do to have a Celestial Marriage, because he wants you to find happiness and love.
I say these things in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
