January 16

I said I would not do it again. I do not know why I ever say 'never again', because almost always there is an 'again'. Tonight I taught Preparing for Eternal Marriage. An older sister in the Suva North Stake asked me every time I saw her if I would teach the class again. She is 32, recently returned from a mission and wants so much to be married.

I was shocked. We had 31 students show up and they were mostly men which is great. 22 to 9. I had them do an ice breaker that was really fun although I should not have taken the time to do it. Every question on the ice breaker sheet had something to do with marriage. Besides the signature of the person of the opposite sex who answered the question they had to collect a phone number. Me?  Sneaky? Nah!

We then talked about Joseph Smith's statement, "I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves."  So many of these Fijian youth are dating non members, marrying outside the temple even if they are both members, or not marrying at all. I collected quotes from Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Spencer W. Kimball, etc. Only prophets and scriptures. I typed them on 8 X 10 paper,  cut them into puzzle pieces. Each student put a different quote together, wrote the principle (s) they learned from the quote, and then wrote the principle on the board. I wish I had had more time. They were horrible at writing principles.  One of the quotes said something about making education, trials, etc easier, because there are two of you. So the principle on the boards said, "If I get married then education will be easier because my wife will do my homework." Uh what?  The rest were just as bad. If I had more time I would have made them read their quotes and we would fix the principles. Because we were registering class was 30 minutes late starting. Drat!

The spirit in this lesson was so much better. A blessing. I told them at the beginning that my goal for each of them was to be dating seriously by the end of the thirteen weeks. I have given them an assignment to pray twice a day every day this week that Heavenly Father will help them find an eternal mate. With His help everything is possible.