Receiving Our Photos

Last week, we finally received our engagement pictures from China. We have waited for more than 4 months. We were thrilled with a lot of uncertainties because we were not sure how good they would turn out. However, we are really surprised by how wonderful these pictures are. 

Posting these two pictures only because they are most indicative of our relationship. We are best friends and we feel so comfortable with each other, and we are so in love with each other that we codepend and support one another. 

Thank You Day 18

I did not intentionally mean to stop writing in the past few days. I need to grt back on track again, but I love the feeling of reminding myself to write has kicked in. It is a good sign that the habit is growing to become my second nature. Now is the crucial stage of whether to turn it into a nature or regress to the old habit of not writing it at all.

I need to have the habit of writing to maintain and improve my writing skill. I am going back to school soon, and I need to publish articles and research to stay alive in the academia. 

Congratulation to me! This girls gets into OSU! I am excited and anxious because I am waiting for funding. Hoping Dr. Nespor will contact me soon. I have this feeling that stuck in my guts which is telling me to be patient! It is coming soon. I should trust this instinct and this intuition! I also communicate with my gut by saying, taking me back to school! I miss school, miss being a student, miss doing research, and wanting to become a research professor to do good for the community and the future generations! 

Please help me! 

Problem Solving in Marriage

“… A husband and wife must attain righteous unity and oneness in their goals, desires, and actions.

How we solve problems that take place our marriage:

Restraint and self-control must be ruling principles in the marriage relationship. Couples must learn to bridle their tongues as well as their passions.

“The secret of a happy marriage is to serve God and each other. The goal of marriage is unity and oneness, as well as self-development. Paradoxically, the more we serve one another, the greater is our spiritual and emotional growth” (“Salvation—A Family Affair,” Ensign, July 1992, 2–4; see also Conference Report, Oct. 1982, 85–86; or Ensign, Nov. 1982, 59–60).

Elder Kimball shared this wise counsel: “Well, don’t just pray to marry the one you love. Instead, pray to love the one you marry.”

We should pray to become more kind, courteous, humble, patient, forgiving, and,especially, less selfish.

Occasionally we hear something like, “Why, we have been married for fifty years, and we have never had a difference of opinion.” If that is literally the case, then one of the partners is overly dominated by the other or, as someone said, is a stranger to the truth. Any intelligent couple will have differences of opinion. Our challenge is to be sure that we know how to resolve them. That is part of the process of making a good marriage better.

Find time to study the scriptures together, and follow this sound counsel from President Kimball: “When a husband and wife go together frequently to the holy temple, kneel in prayer together in their home with their family, go hand in hand to their religious meetings, keep their lives wholly chaste, mentally and physically, … and both are working together for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, then happiness is at its pinnacle” (Marriage and Divorce [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976], p. 24).

Goals

In the next coming weeks, I will devote my time to strengthen our marriage. I will be studying all the available materials from our Church about eternal marriage.

Since we have bee living in Taiwan, we have been not so active in Church. Nevertheless, I do miss Church and the life that I used to have back in the States. Since we are going back to the States soon and we have been talking about sealing as an eternal couple, then we need to be fully prepared.

Therefore, it is a great timing to devote our time to study the scriptures and listen to the apostles' talks about this topic.

I will start jotting down all the useful materials here.

Day 1 04.11.17

"Marriages would be happier if nurtured more carefully.“ Russell M. Nelson

It was He who said: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.”5

Couples blessed with children are accountable to God for the care they give to their children.

to appreciate, 
As grateful partners look for the good in each other and sincerely pay compliments to one another, wives and husbands will strive to become the persons described in those compliments.

to communicate, 
They need to nurture their spiritual as well as physical intimacy. They should strive to elevate and motivate each other. Marital unity is sustained when goals are mutually understood. Good communication is also enhanced by prayer. To pray with specific mention of a spouse’s good deed (or need) nurtures a marriage.

and to contemplate.

Contemplation will nurture both a marriage and God’s kingdom. The Master said, “Seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”17

President Harold B. Lee said “that the most important of the Lord’s work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.”18 And President David O. McKay declared, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.”19

When you as husband and wife recognize the divine design in your union—when you feel deeply that God has brought you to each other—your vision will be expanded and your understanding enhanced. Such feelings are expressed in words of a song that has long been a favorite of mine:

Because you come to me with naught save love,

And hold my hand and lift mine eyes above,

A wider world of hope and joy I see,

Because you come to me.

Because you speak to me in accents sweet,

I find the roses waking round my feet,

And I am led through tears and joy to thee,

Because you speak to me.

Because God made thee mine, I’ll cherish thee

Through light and darkness, through all time to be,

And pray His love may make our love divine,

Because God made thee mine.20

Adam Smith -- Wealth of Nations

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.