This week we have been talking about dating and what kinds of things are important in finding a marriage partner.  We always hear the phrase, "opposites attract" however, in dating people the opposite is true.  One of the laws of attraction is that you have similarities.  We have to be careful though to avoid misattribution of arousal.  You may have just raised your eyebrows and said huh?  Let me explain it this way.  If you ride on a scary roller coaster with a semi-attractive person, after the ride is over, because your adrenaline is pumping, you tend to think that person is more attractive.  This is an interesting concept, but if you look at it more closely we realize the physical symptoms we experience when we go through an exciting and adrenaline provoking experience are quite the same when we are around someone we are attracted to.  You might experience sweating, clammy hands, heart racing, and other physical symptoms.  This is the reason you might misattribute the feelings you are experiencing because they are the same in an adrenal provoking experience as they are when you are attracted to someone.  So be careful when the next guy asks you out to a scary movie or a theme park!  Make sure you see him in other situations so you can truly have an opportunity to understand your feelings.

Something I was thinking about during class was how my parents distributed things like chores and I honestly think they did a good job.  I have 5 brothers and 1 sister and I didn't ever feel like I did more or less work than my brothers.  We still to this day have a chore chart and when I live at home I am put back into the rotation for chores.  Along with household work I also helped with the outside work.  I wasn't exempt from pulling weeds or getting rid of rocks or even doing the mowing or weed whacking just because I was a girl.  That is one thing I definitely want to implement into my own family.  Gender roles is such a sensitive topic in our world today and I really think it is becoming one of Satan's tools to destroy the family.  If he can confuse us to the point that women believe so much that we should be equal with men in every aspect that family becomes less important and a job becomes more important then he has succeeded in destroying the family.  No I don't think that women shouldn't gain an education or hold a job if they want to, but really family is the most important thing and that is one of the biggest commandments; to multiply and replenish the earth by having and raising a family.  That is something I have always wanted and I definitely won't throw that away simply because I feel inferior to men.

I really love this class and all of the insightful things I learn each week.  It is always difficult to try to narrow down what I want to say.  I think today my post is going to be about a study we read on illegal immigrant families and the struggles they face coming to America.  Too often I think we look at the illegal immigrants in the United States and despise them for coming to our country, not speaking the language, and taking our jobs.  Are these really accurate descriptions of the people who come into our country though?  Imagine a mother and father with several children whom they love very much!  They want to give them everything they never had; excellent schooling, job opportunities, and new experiences.  Doesn't sound harmful at all right?  In fact I'm sure that's how most of you feel about your children.  It doesn't matter what country you come from, we can all relate to wanting the best for the ones we love.  When we start to see immigrants in this light it changes a few things.  In class we discussed the trials and hardships a family may face if they choose to immigrate.  Usually the Father leaves the family first and tries to begin a life here in America.  As a family the father being gone leaves a hole; the soul provider is gone causing the mother to have to go to work which takes her out of her motherly role in which she cares for the children, cooks meals, cleans, and is the nurturer.  Other family roles may change as well.  The older siblings may take on more adult responsibilities causing them to step out of their norm.  It just spirals until all of the original family roles have been changed.  Now the family finally gets the chance to move to America with their Father.  They haven't seen him in years... what does this do to their relationship?  The father may feel useless because they have learned to get along without him now.  The husband wife relationship has been damaged by the distance.  Aside from family relationships, the whole family is in a strange place, with strange new people, facing a new language and many things they don't understand.  All of this is because the parents simply wanted a better life for their children.  In this new place the children may be ridiculed and criticized because they can't speak the language or don't understand everything.  The support system the family once had from their own extended family is now gone and they must be feeling very alone.  This brings me to a question, is it really worth it to leave everything you know and everyone you love for what you think might be a better life?  Do we as Americans contribute in any way to making this country a better place for them to come or do we make it a worse place than they could have imagined? 

In class this week we talked a lot about roles in the family and relationships between family members.  We were asked what our role in our own family is and I know I am definitely the peacekeeper in my family!  I have five brothers and one sister so there tend to be lots of fights and things that I get the luxury of breaking up, but I am also a rock to my siblings and I'm starting to realize to my parents as well.  When times get hard and we are going through rough patches I am the one my family looks to for strength.  Now don't get me wrong, I struggle just as much as everyone else does through these trials, but I am starting to see that trials are only a small moment.  Even if it is something that lasts for years, we have to pick ourselves up each day and keep smiling because if we don't, we lose ourselves in despair and we start to pull away from not only our family members, but our Heavenly Father as well.  I've been there, and it's a dark hole that is hard to get out of, but remember you have been blessed with agency and you can choose who you want to be in this life and where you want to end up. 

This week in class we watched two videos about what I would consider one of Satan's sneakiest tools!  I doubt any of us saw this one coming.  What is this tool you may ask?  It's another attack on the family.  For years now we have been lectured about overpopulation and the potential risks of having too many kids.  However, the videos we watched for class stated otherwise.  Did you know we are actually on a fertility decline?  People just aren't having as many children as they used to.  What does this mean for society and our futures?  Less people to take care of the older generation as they retire, less workers to complete jobs, higher taxes and many more repercussions.  Several reasons play into why the birth rate has dropped; things like individualism, more working mothers, age of marriage, cohabitation, sex before marriage, divorce rates, etc.  Something else I learned this week shocked me!  Elder Russell M. Nelson of the LDS church  gave a devotional at BYU-Idaho on January 26, 2010.  In his devotional he stated, "The latest data indicate that the world’s population is 6.8 billion people.  If every one of those 6.8 billion people were allocated one quarter of an acre (for example, under that formula a family with a father and a mother with two children would be given one acre), I repeat, if a quarter of an acre were allocated to each man, woman, and child now living on the earth today, they would all fit in the country of Brazil, with 20 percent of Brazil still left unoccupied" (Nelson, 2010)! Shocking right!?!  Many will say, well it's my choice how many children I have and I would say, you are exactly right!  It should be between you, your husband, and the Lord how many children you bring into this world, but please don't let other things get in the way of starting and raising a family.   I come from a family with seven kids and I wouldn't have it any other way!  

Welcome to my blog!

I have never had a blog before and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit how long it took me to figure out how to start this thing!  However, I am not embarrassed to say how much I love my family.  We have been through thick and thin together and I can't think of anyone I would rather be stuck with forever!!