Temple Marriage

My lovely mother is teaching in Sunday school this week and sent me the below questions to answer. First off, she’s going to give an amazing lesson. Not to embarrass her, but sometimes she gets the tiniest bit nervous about teaching this class (Gospel Doctrine) despite being an incredible teacher. I felt like posting my responses here as Sel and I most recently celebrated our anniversary and I am feeling extra grateful this week for our marriage.

1: What did you do to prepare for a temple marriage?

I had been preparing to go on a mission when I met Mike. I had already been attending temple prep classes for a few months and once we got serious, we started going to them together. We also prayed together and separately before getting engaged to know if He approved of our choice to marry one another.

2. What difference has it made in your marriage to be married in the temple?

It is made all the difference to have been married in the temple. My marriage is the most God-like aspect of who I am, it transcends mortality. Our sealing unites us with one another, but most importantly, it seals us both to our Heavenly Father. The center of our marriage something special than our love for one another, it is centered on our love of the Gospel. It brings power and perspective to every hour we blessedly spend together.

3: What advice can you give to those who have not yet been married in the temple?

Sacrifice anything and everything to be married in the temple. If you’ve found the person you want to spend the rest of eternity, don’t let anything stand in your way from making those marriage covenants. It is worth waiting for. It is worth resisting temptation. It is worth any monetary value you could conceive. Nothing will ever compare to kneeling across from your spouse and creating a never-ending promise to love them.

4: How does temple attendance strengthen your marriage?

It reiterates the promises we made the day we were married. Every time we go together, I gain deeper understanding of why our marriage is so key to our happiness. I leave the temple knowing the man standing next to me a is a son of God and I am His daughter. We are obligated to love one another as He loves us.

5: What blessings have you seen because of your temple marriage?

I could never number the vast blessings I have seen because of my temple marriage. It has given me more joy than I ever imagined. It has humbled me, refined me, and tested me. It has let me see a deeper side of divinity. It has taught me how to be that little bit more kind, selfless, patient and charitable. It forms me each day into a more Christ-like person. I am so, so grateful for my opportunity to have a temple marriage.

A True Celebration

Our anniversary was ridiculously fun despite the three hours we spent after work at the bank with our lender. One of my favorite parts of the day was when Sel came to meet me for lunch. I was on the phone with a customer when my little nephew came toddling in the door holding a sunflower (my favorite) and saying “La-La” over and over again. Davie calls me Aunt Lala and it melts my heart every single time he sticks that little tongue of his waaay out and trills those two syllables. His cute self was followed by my dashing hubby carrying a green vase of beautiful sunflowers and a GIANT canvas portrait of us from our bridals. That boy surely knows how to spoil me. We ate at Chick-fil-A, an all time favorite of Sel’s and Davie powered through some healthy fried chicken and milk. After work, as I mentioned earlier, we got to spend three hours signing our souls away for our mortgage. It really wasn’t that awful, but I would have definitely spent our anniversary evening doing something different than that. We tried out a new restaurant in town called the Elephant Bar that was pretty darn delicious. We have had our fair share of sweet potato fries and we generally enjoy them, but the ones we had that night blew our socks off. Our waiter had us try our fries with warm caramel. It transformed some decent sweet potato fries into a regular Thanksgiving party of marshmallow encrusted candied yams. It was amazing! I would definitely recommend giving it a try. Also, when our waiter found out it was our second anniversary, he brought us out an ice-cream dessert with two little candles for us to blow out. What a pal J We then went for secondies of ice-cream to Handel’s and discovered a miracle. Our favorite ice-cream of all time is Graham Canyon from the BYU Creamery. We were never able to find any flavor even comparable to our beloved flavor and doubted we ever would until this fateful night. We have now discovered Graham Canyon’s less attractive younger sibling. It is very comparable to Graham Canyon, but has a lot of room to grow to become the full-fledged life-defining ice-cream that Graham Canyon is. We then blasted our wedding song on the way back home and laughed like crazy people. It was pure bliss. I am obsessed with that guy. We also got a really sweet card from my parents and a Home Depot gift card. Jackpot for our new (almost) homeowner selves! And we also got an adorable card from our second parents, my sweet aunt and uncle. The thoughtfulness of my relatives makes me tear up sometimes. We are so grateful for all the love our families so generously pour upon us.

Beginning Year Three

I can hardly believe how much has happened in year two. We started year two eating dinner at the Melting Pot in SLC. I had just graduated and accepted a job with State Farm and Sel had just finished his secondary’s for medical school. We spent the evening reviewing year one and dreaming about all the changes and possibilities bound to come in year two. I doubt we knew how much year two would change us, how much we would grow up. We start year three having accomplished so much of what we talked about one year ago. Sel graduated from BYU, we moved across the country, Sel has been accepted to medical school, I am a supervisor with Kelly, and we just bought our first home. Whew, amazing that all of those things can fit in one simple sentence despite the 365 days of anxious waiting and effort that it took to be able to write those few small words. I never would have believed you if you told me the anxious waiting would be something I would treasure someday. I would look back on year two and recognize how precious it was for our relationship. I have a new perspective on fairly tales. The sweetest part of the happily ever after, is the “after”. It’s the tears and years and the efforts to keep it happy that make it fairy tale worthy. It’s the companionship and reliance and trust that is built through the day to day.  I never could have imagined loving Sel even more than I did before we went through this year of change. I couldn’t have imagined I would look at the beautiful lines of his face and my heart would be filled with even more awe and pride in the man that he is. He is the best part of myself and always will be. Here is to another year of falling even more in love with the incredible man who I am blessed to call husband.