Lessons from Small and Big Towns

Why #faith in Jesus Christ and #church matter. A lesson learned from Abinadi today, who happens to be my FAVORITE prophet in this year’s Come Follow Me curriculum.

Collette and I just sat on our front porch at our apartment today after church when we got home and talked for a bit. In our congregation at church we have noticed there are a few things that are really good and a few things that worry us. The things that are wonderful and soul building are things typical of a small town where we live for now. However, the things that are concerning are also, from my experience, typical of a small town.

We keep going because we value truth and love more than comfort.

I’ll explain. I’ve been in a lot of small towns in my life and a lot of middle size and big cities as well. I grew up in tiny Delta, Colorado, lived in Grand Junction for a while, resided in Collingwood (tiny), Sudbury (smallish), London (big), Brampton (big), Temiskaming (super tiny), Hamilton (big), Parry Sound (super tiny) and Waterloo (midsize) Ontario, Canada, and Orem, Provo and Cedar City, Utah. What I’ve noticed about each is that there is a pronounced and glaring difference in church membership in the small communities; and it’s been the same every single time. 

The difference is that in the big cities, there has been a higher concentration of folks in the general population who care about how they feel more than anyone else’s wellbeing. Naturally, this contributes to higher crime rates, more overall toleration of evil and higher antagonism towards members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who follow prophetic counsel by living the gospel conspicuously. The GOOD part of this for the overall spiritual health of the members of the church in these areas is that, in my experience, most of these people are always aware of just how wicked these places are where they have lived for so long. This positively affects their zeal for living the truth and makes it more obvious to many of them just how far away our society is today from Christ and the absolute truth He taught and lived. I actually wrote a song about this recently that’ll be released soon. These members of the church understand just how grotesque, debauched, selfish, lazy, arrogant, whiny and carelessly sinful their cities of residence have become. 

They have allowed their awareness of this to change their hearts to WANT to be as centered on Christ, the truth and His prophets as possible. They know what real life looks like in our fallen world better than most, but most of them don’t allow the depressing nature of the world drag them down, they use it as motivation to become the light of Christ that others in the city look to when things get REALLY bad. They become a pillar of joy and truth, unapologetically, to the public, even and especially when it opens them up to persecution.

-Like them, we go to church because we value truth and love more than comfort.-

… rewind

When I left my home town of Delta, Colorado, I quickly realized a few things, especially when I went to serve my mission. 1. Like most of the small towns I lived in in Canada, Delta has the same down to earth, honest to goodness kindness. 2. I wonder if my parents moved there to keep me away from all the bad things that are easier to get involved with in the big cities, and I’m thankful they did, 3. The only down side to this is that those who DO stay in small towns long term unknowingly suffer from a certain kind of small town ignorance. It’s an ignorance of what it feels like to experience worst kinds of personal trial and struggle, especially at the hands of other people. I know it might seem weird for me to say that but stay tuned.

I obviously haven’t lived in nearly enough small towns to know if it’s the same on a global or even national scale. But from my limited experience, small town people who have lived there for a long time tend to get really scared of anything that challenges their small town paradigm. I know I certainly would have responded in arrogance and criticism if someone had told 18 year old me that I didn’t know what real suffering for the sake of truth feels like. But had anyone told me that, in retrospect, they would have been 100% correct. 

After ten years of Lorraine and I suffering more kinds of trauma than most people ever go through in ten lifetimes (before she passed away), one of the things I was most nervous about moving back to the States was a lack of opposition. This may sound strange to some, but if anyone reads this who knows anything about our journey together up there, you’ll know a little of what I’m talking about. The reason I was a little scared might seem backwards to some. The whole time up there was a massive struggle to fight against the constant, intense opposition and trauma we suffered at the hands of the negligent and intensely selfish and wicked general population in Hamilton, Ontario; and by “constant”, I mean daily and often even hourly… for 10 years. BECAUSE of the opposition, as we partnered with Christ and lived by prophetic counsel the best we could, the person I was able to become was something I NEVER wanted to lose. 

Thanks to the weight of the burdens we were under, I was able to develop enough spiritual traction to experience massive amounts of personal growth and wisdom God never would have been able to instill in me in such a relatively short period of time had we not pressed forward in faith under such extreme circumstances.  I was so scared to lose that! If you want, inbox me and I can tell you about a very intense, strange, and revealing spiritual experience I had crossing the border back into the United States from Canada in 2019. Anyways, you can read more about this idea in David A Bednar’s April 2014 talk, “Bear Up Their Burdens With Ease.”

Now I live in a small town again after spending the first three years of my marriage with Collette in a big-ish city. And yes, to me, Provo, Orem, AF, PG and Lehi all together are one big city. The same thing I’ve noticed in every other small town is true here. Within a few weeks after we moved in, we had already (kindly) asked our neighbors in our building several times to stop smoking so close to the building since Collette is asthmatic as well as sensitive to smells and I’m just really sensitive to the smell. Especially since it’s illegal where we are. One of them got really angry and told us we moved to the wrong town. Remember what I alluded to earlier about people being stuck in their ways? This pattern has continued with other neighbors, no matter how kind we try to be. The small town paradigm here is no different than any other small town I’ve ever been in.

Kindness is prevalent generally, but only when their perception of truth and trial isn’t challenged. Even at church, several instances of plainly false principles have been taught from the pulpit in our congregation and I have felt several staring eyes at me when I have spoken up for the truth in Sunday School or in testimony meeting. Defending the truth has gotten me in trouble socially. Whatever. Good thing I stopped caring years ago about what others think of me (different from caring how they feel). I’m happy to explain more about this if you want to ask. Collette says that’s one of the reasons she loves me. One of the reasons Collette and I get along so well is because we both have family members that care more about personal comfort than truth and we are able to help each other find ways to love them without diluting our discipleship.

Still, we go to church because we value truth and love more than comfort.

***Please don’t get me wrong here. I AM NOT saying that I have some kind of personal grievance against small towns. I do not believe they are somehow inherently worse than big cities. Remember I did say that the big cities I have been in are far more wicked and small towns seem to have generally kinder people. Small towns are where most of the people are who have a problem with big government and Satan’s secret combinations at the highest levels of leadership in our country. Good on them! Many of them just don’t seem to be able to adapt very well to truth when it contradicts their own life paradigm. That’s something God used about big cities to teach me how to adapt in obedience when God challenges my world view. 

I remember one small town I was told about here in Utah, where one of my SLCC professors used to live, where a member of their family was trying to get help for feeling like they were the other gender. Because such an idea was scary to their Bishop and Stake President, it was swept under the rug, and they were told to be silent about it and not tell anyone else and that they were not going to get help for it and to just forget about it. Even after multiple pleas for help, all the Stake President did was tell them that they would all face church disciplinary action and church courts if they ever mentioned it to him again or told the public their story, despite the severe mental health issues the situation was causing. This was the same Stake President who bribed his son to go on a mission by offering to buy him a car. 🤦‍♂️… small town paradigm, I could swear. Good thing those leaders will be held accountable to God for that and Christ will balance all things in the end. Although I will say Collette said she’s been in one small town that was the complete opposite, wonderfully so. 🤷‍♂️ so obviously all of them aren’t like that, I’ve just never personally been in one that’s not. Again, I understand that my own experience is only my own.

The bottom line here is that, like Abinadi, we aren’t out to look good, be popular, liked or anything else. What we care about is the truth! As Christ taught, only the truth can set you free! Sometimes the truth will make you look awkward to the rest of the world, but to me that’s a badge of honor. Like Abinadi, you may only touch one person’s heart with what you say. Heck, you may  think you’re doing absolutely no good, but I will tell you, like Abinadi, you don’t know what good the seed you plant will do in someone’s heart who didn’t have the faith to defend you in the truth in the moment. Later on they will remember you and what you did.

That is why we we go stay faithful to God’s prophets. Like Abinadi, we value truth and love more than comfort. In the end, when you combine truth and love in perfect balance, you’re GOING to ruffle some feathers. People are going to tell you your love is actually “hate” or “bigotry”. Don’t fall for it. Whether it’s those who are deceived about the gay lifestyle, so-called “transgender” matters, religion in general, the validity of prophetic counsel, tithing funds, the word of wisdom, sexual purity and modesty, media choices, idol worship (this is a big one), dishonesty or any other number of lies the devil peddles, don’t you fall for it! That is just their personal sins itching in their mind and their own history, unknown to you, is like a slave master, whipping them into numb obedience to the carnal nature of the flesh every time the truth is presented to them. It’s a far cry different from the free, deliberate, intentional, ultra aware, clear visioned obedience of adherence to Christ.

That kind of obedience is far more joyful.

Being Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu.... or anything.

This is another one addressing something I have seen several times over the last few years that is based on a misunderstanding of truth as a whole.

There have been several times I have seen posts saying that Jesus wasn't a Christian, Abraham wasn't a Jew, Muslim or Christian, Moses wasn't a Jew, Krishna wasn't Hindu, Enoch wasn't any of those and so forth. Let's take a step back and look at what it means to be a these things.

From my own limited observations, most of the world sees each belief system as something that started at some point in time by someone who lived on this earth after humans had already been living here. In the case of Jesus, many believe that Christianity really started with the mortal ministry of Christ. I remember one person telling me when I was serving my mission in Canada that they believed Jesus came to completely break down all religious traditions. This person thought that it truly didn't matter which church you belonged to as long as it was some sort of church that taught the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. I know of another person who goes the complete opposite direction, refusing to step foot in any religious building but the Catholic church and has expressed the thought that anyone who isn't white and Catholic is going to hell. Yes, I know. Pretty horrible. It's pretty stunning to me, too, that anyone still thinks that way. I know of others who believe that as long as you just try to be a good person, that God will have mercy on you and you'll live in happiness with Him forever.

Something most people seem to be missing in the world today is that there is an absolute truth. I was listening to a podcast recently called The Ancient Tradition. In the first episode towards the end the host said that many seem to feel like we are living in a “post-truth” world and promptly responds to this sentiment with a very firm “I reject that.” Good for her! I haven't listened to more of her podcast yet, but I certainly intent to. Either way, something that most people in this world fail to understand is that truth is not something that was invented by man or was decided on by any one person or counsel of people. It was always been truth, even back into the eternities before this world was created and will continue to exist as the truth into the eternities endlessly from this point onward. As Tad Callister said in his book The Infinite Atonement, “There are certain laws of the universe that are immutable, that are without beginning of days or end of years... they are eternal, co-existent realities with the intelligences of the universe. These laws are immutable in that they cannot be altered or modified in any form. They unchangeable from eternity to eternity.”

In this quote Callister is referring to the eternal balance of justice and mercy and explains that the reason God is God is because He has mastered these laws. He lives by unchanging truth. He does not work around it or seek to violate these laws in any way, because He knows if He does all of the matter in His creation will no longer honor Him. He simply knows how to live and operate within the bounds of these eternal truths and does so for our well being. He taught this truth to all of us before we were born when we lived as spirits without the same physical bodies we have now and gave us the option to continue to live by these truths and thus become like Him and enjoy the perfect life He has or not. Up to that point we had enjoyed likely eons of time in the His presence, having immediate access to all truth and not knowing any other kind of reality of way of living. He knew that the only way to really understand why the truth matters is to live it because we choose to, not just because it's the only option available. We had to live in an environment for a time where we would be confronted with ALL options and learn to choose truth while being presented with everything that's not true as well. He knew that a sterile existence of living truth only because there is no other option would never cause the internal changes in us necessary to make us like Him and enjoy the life He enjoys. As the story of one farmer goes, the farmer said to his son, “everything I have I can willingly give you, but everything I am you must become yourself.” Thankfully, we have Jesus to help with that, which I will explain later.

God also knew that, in order to have us truly decide for ourselves, we would need to start from ground zero on the mortal plane. We would need to start with no memory of who we were, where we came from or why we are here, but, to stay within the balance of those laws of justice and mercy, He chose One, Jehovah, before any of us came to earth, to be our reminder of what the truth is. Jesus Christ, as He is known on this earth, would send other messengers and delegate the spreading of the truths we learned before this life, piece by piece, so it wouldn't overwhelm us all at once in our weakened mortal condition. These messengers are called prophets and today's prophet is Russell M Nelson (2024). Jesus sent them throughout the whole history of the world from ancient biblical times at the beginning of the world until today – excluding a period of about 1,400 years that was prophesied of in Isaiah 24, Amos 8, Matt 24 and 2 Timothy 4.

Now, what does this have to do with any of the aforementioned leaders?

Jesus has many names in the scriptures. One of them is Truth. I'm going to briefly quote Jack Christianson's speech “The Mortal Christ” here to explain this. “What is one of Jesus' names? The Truth. So whenever we talk about learning about the truth, part of what we're talking about learning about is about who? Christ... When Jesus stands before Pilate... Pilate asks Him, 'What is truth? and Jesus won't respond, and then Pilate screams out 'don't you know I could have you crucified?' and then Jesus decides to say something and He says this: No you couldn't. In fact He says 'you would have no power over me except it be given to you from above' and I can almost hear Him whispering under His breath, which it isn't recorded in any of the four gospels, 'You don't really understand, do you Pilate? You really think you could have me crucified?' Gerald Lund writes, 'All Jesus had to do was blink and the entire city of Jerusalem would have been annihilated'... I can just see the Savior just going 'oh, my boy, you silly child, you really think you could do that to me?'... he wants to know what is truth. Jesus won't answer him. Why? Because He had an audience that didn't care about what the truth was; and then, in Doctrine and Covenants section 93... 'truth is a knowledge of things as they are, as a they were and as they are to come.' Now, that's what truth is. It's a knowledge of the plan... Now I've gotta ask the second question that I've gotta ask. Who is the truth? It's Christ. So when one comes to a knowledge of the truth, they come to a knowledge of the Son of God and His plan of happiness.”

When Christ accepted the role of our Savior and Redeemer under God's plan, from that moment onward He had extended His perfect oneness with the Father (in every way except physical identity) into the eternities. He agreed to:

1. Be the perfect example of the truth by living it flawlessly and thus showing us how to do the same

2. Suffer the consequences of our failure to live the truth (sin) and, in doing so, pay an eternal debt to the law of justice that He didn't owe, our spiritual debt. According to the eternal laws of justice that God has to follow, even one tiny imperfect choice or act of disobedience to His commands (as a perfect being, our God), we would permanently, eternally stop us from ever returning to the presence of someone so eternally flawless as Him, so

3. Christ became our “creditor” with the laws of justice instead, our Mediator with the Father. He suffered for every ounce of departure from the truth we would commit or experience in mortality and intentionally imbalance (different from violate) the eternal scales of justice and mercy so He could have leverage to literally “purchase” us with His blood and suffering if we agreed to His terms instead.

So, overall, Jesus and the Father have been the arbiters of truth from the beginning. Real Christianity, a belief in objective, eternal, unchanging truth, or Truth, Christ Himself, began before this world was ever inhabited with people. He Himself was the very definition the belief system that we call Christianity today. You can also simply call Christianity in it's primal form the pure quintessence of all truth because Christ Himself is the embodiment of truth alongside His (and our) Father in Heaven.

To say that Christ wasn't Christian is also to say that Christ isn't based in truth, which is a completely satanic, evil, utterly false idea. Christianity as it is taught from Christ and His prophets and apostles is absolute truth. It is all of the truth we gained from the Father in our pre-mortal life. Christ IS Christianity, His very life, teachings, atoning sacrifice for us and position as our Mediator and Redeemer.

In regards to the others, I'll address each one briefly individually.

Moses and Abraham were indeed not Jewish. They were Christian. Judaism didn't become a religion until the Old Testament Israelite nation had strayed from the original intent of the Law of Moses (read these brief references here, here, and here) which was to point to the great eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The reason Christ was constantly telling people in the New Testament to stop being like the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes was because those groups had become so pedantic about the law of Moses that they twisted it and perverted it to become something entirely different from it's original intended purpose. They had morphed the Law of Moses into something many of them believed would, of itself, be their salvation and adopted the false belief that their prophesied Messiah would come as a military leader to physically free them from Roman captivity. Boy did they have it wrong. Moses was trying to help the ancient Israelites understand the purpose of the Law of Moses in helping them come unto Christ as their Messiah in anticipation of His life, mission and atonement for their sins. Judaism is a tainted and, in our day, drastically strayed version of what Christ tried to teach them in His mortal ministry. Abraham was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel and taught all of his sons about the Truth, Christ Himself, and about what would be His future mission as their Messiah and Savior. Moses was called to do the same thing during his time.

Enoch was also absolutely a Christian. The reason he was able to build the city that rose to Heaven is because his people were willing to be successfully guided by him to live the eternal truths that Christ taught Him. They did it so well they became too holy for this earth and, in mercy, God moved them and their entire city off of the earth into His presence.

Krishna, Lao Tzu and Mohammed, as great leaders as they were, a) never claimed to be gods or prophets, b) never paid the eternal debt for anyone's sins c) do not have and never claimed to have authority to be arbiters of eternal truth. Same with Martin Luther. He never claimed to be a prophet or intended to start a sect of Christianity. As Neal A Maxwell once said, if in the end you have not chosen Christ, it will not matter what you have chosen. Meaning that no other life philosophy from anyone else, from Krishna, Lao Tzu, Mohammed and Buddha to the Pope, Confucius or any other philosopher or individual is 100% based in truth, and therefore cannot align you with the eternal truths that have existed from eternity to eternity.

Christ is the source, alongside God the Father, of all truth. It has been so since before the world was. That is why is a misrepresentation of truth to claim that He wasn't Christian. He IS Christianity, the very embodiment of Truth; you might as well call those two words synonymous because they are, and what God has given us so far of that truth can be found it it's entirety in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Relationships and Marriage

If you want a good relationship and marriage or even just have enough mental stamina to read through a long post for the sake of some good suggestions for your marriage (current or future)... This post is a follow up on the one I did a while ago about #divorce. This time it’s about relationships as a whole, addressing the idea of people celebrating being #single over being in a relationship. I have seen quite a bit of commentary in so many posts and comments on reels and such with a toxic attitude of “stay single! [The other gender] isn’t worth it!” and I feel like this world really needs what I am about to say below. For those who have struggled with the #dating and marriage realm, please don’t write me off right away. Please give what I’m saying here a chance. You might find yourself surprised at how much it may resonate with you. A quick disclaimer before I begin (once again). I am not a therapist and won’t pretend to be (that’s my brother 😉 ) but what I can say here comes from going through and overcoming a massive amount of relationship #trauma as well as finding a #blissful marriage that most people today can only dream about. No, I’m not bragging or saying that that somehow makes me better than anyone else, but rather to illustrate why it’s never okay to give up on having a happy marriage and #family. I even wrote an entire… I think 4 1/2 minute song about that very subject matter called Happy Family (find it on my Spotify)

Here we go. When I was going through #CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) in Canada as a part of my own #addictionrecovery, one of the things my therapist talked about was blanket statements. We see them used in much more than just the dating world, they are used in politics, religion, schools, workplaces, and even just everyday conversations with friends when we carelessly group people together under one umbrella and spew out these all-or-none statements. Ideas like:

“all men watch porn”, “all women are bad drivers”, “all democrats are brainwashed”, “all republicans are misogynistic”, “not one cop out there cares about anything but filling his quota”, “no such thing as an honest car salesman/mechanic anymore”

These are all prejudiced #lies. They are blanket statements that assume that EVERY LAST one of those people are that way. I’m not talking about intent here. I’m talking about the actual words you speak. Ever studied The Four Agreements? Be Impeccable With Your Word is one of them. If you don’t mean it exactly as you say it, DON’T SAY IT! I know some people will say, “it's just an expression.” Guess what, it's also a lie and who do the scriptures say is the father of lies? Yup! Satan himself. It it's not true, keep life simple and don't say it! And yes, that includes #sarcasm. Did you know the origin of the word sarcasm? It's roots are German, sarkazein, meaning to tear flesh. (Don't believe me? Look it up.) The entire purpose of sarcasm is to injure; the antithesis of love. Besides, there is absolutely zero evidence to support any of those statements above. If anyone who reads this truly believes any of them, it means you have fallen prey to the prophesy in D&C 45:26 “…[mankind’s] hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound.” Blanket statements are not only untrue, they drive you away from the love of God.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World says “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”

Many of those who see this will disregard or disagree with this document and Collette even has a relative who claimed President Hinckley was a fallen prophet when he read that document for the first time. I grew up in a little town that was sadly and heavily steeped in the idea that women were men’s “better half”. These are very #toxic anti-Christ ideas. Ideas like these is how Satan has been able to manipulate men and women into believing that they will never be good enough as they are so if they can just be the other gender, they’ll feel better about themselves. Lie #1. That or he’ll convince people that there’s no hope of finding a healthy relationship with the opposite sex so the “might as well find one with the same sex”. Lie #2. He lies them into the spiritual bondage of same sex relationships. No I’m not saying that’s the case with every gay or lesbian out there. I'm sure people are sometimes gay or lesbian for reason's even legitimate experts don't understand (real experts, not “gender studies” majors), but the lies I mentioned there are certainly some of the tools the devil uses to deceive.

My friends (and even those who aren’t my friends), don’t fall for this lie. The Proclamation I mentioned above clearly teaches that “Marriage between man and woman is essential to [God’s] eternal plan”, which means that if you have given up on the possibility of a happy relationship and marriage with the opposite sex (and yes, there are only two), then you’ve fallen for the lie that you’re beyond the promises that await the souls of the obedient. God made it VERY clear in D&C 82:10 that when we remain fully obedient to His commandments He HAS to bless us. This extends to all blessings associated with all commandments, including the blessing of a happy marriage in His time to a man (if you’re a woman) or woman (if you’re a man) that can last all through the eternities.

***Now, I figured instead of just telling you not to give up on a blissful, joyful, romantic relationship with the opposite sex, I can at least tell you from first hand experience what has and hasn’t worked for me in this area. For context, I have been in an extremely complicated, abusive marriage (where not even several experienced therapists and ecclesiastical leaders could figure out how to help us). I am now in a marriage there is lasting, persistent #joy and there’s never been one morning where we wake up or one night where we lie next to each other thinking “I really don’t like him/her right now.” In my current marriage, Collette and I haven’t had a single fight in almost 4 years or marriage.

And I'll tell you how we do it.

1. Not sweating the small stuff. Hear me out. I think it was my grandpa, when he performed my marriage to Collette in the Payson Temple, who said “when you go into a marriage, go in with eyes wide open and then when you get there, close them a little.” The obvious purpose behind this statement was to make sure we knew everything about each other that was possible to know without living and sleeping together, including each other's biggest strengths and weaknesses. Then, when you begin living together, you close your eyes and not worry about small things. Stuff like leaving the toilet seat up, putting toilet paper the wrong way, not doing the dishes “the right way” or squeezing the toothpaste “incorrectly” or stupid things like that.

If you're one of those people who thinks “but if it's important to me it should be important to them”, consider this. SHOULD it be that important to you? Important enough to make you resentful when you don't get your way? Think about it scripturally, or, as President Nelson said, “think celestial.” Granted, some things are objectively that important, but I'll talk about that shortly. Between Collette and I, I have a bad habit of leaving my socks on the floor when I take them off but even though it still happens sometimes after four years of marriage. But she doesn't ever let it get to her because she knows she has a habit of leaving her bobby pins on the floor; and with the color of our carpet, they often aren't found until we end up accidentally vacuuming them up or I step on them or find that one has somehow made it's way onto the kitchen or bathroom floor. Whatever. There are several other stupid little things that we could easily get annoyed at, from a few of my driving habits to her indecisiveness with shopping and everything in between. We know there are far more important things so we're like, “seriously? Who freaking cares?” Which leads me to my next point.

2. With the stuff that does matter, we make absolutely sure we work until we DO see eye to eye on it. Now don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean we CURRENTLY see eye to eye on every single moral question that could possibly arise. We have had the hard conversations (and kept them peaceful) about everything from sex and preferences in the bedroom, money, tithing, Word of Wisdom matters, LGBT issues, abortion, politics, guns and media choices to temple worship, garments, prophetic counsel, the atonement of Jesus Christ, racism, church history, proper child rearing methods, and the Family Proclamation, energy work and more. Some of these conversations are still something we talk about when occasion arises that we don't see 100% eye to eye on right now. My point with this is that we will continue to have those conversations and NEVER shy away from them or allow them to become points of contention. Most of those subjects are something we do see eye to eye on, but not all of them. We simply keep trying, keep working together through them and we NEVER give up or resign ourselves to perpetual disagreement about them for the rest of our mortal lives. And no, of course it's not just spiritual things we try to be supportive of with each other. We persistently encourage each other's gifts and talents and less important (but still important) elements of our marriage. We are always working to remember to speak each other's love languages - quality time is #1 for Collette and words of affirmation is probably my biggest. She is amazingly supporting of my music and I love encouraging her in her food and childcare abilities. We just don't stress about it to the point where if one of us makes a mistake, we act like a wounded dog and get spiteful. We let it go, forgive, do better and move on. We work persistently, patiently and kindly towards complete mental, spiritual and social unification in every matter of morality and religion. And that leads on to my third point.

3. How we resolve disagreements.

First and foremost, in our efforts to do this, we never ever ever ever EVER resort to name-calling, insults, sexist, or sarcastic or emotionally charged blanket statements (i.e. using terms like “always” or “never” or “all” or “none”) or hyperbole or anything else unkind or unfair. We simply talk through our problems, expressing our feelings clearly but kindly. I've noticed a lot of people giving up on or simply refusing to have and persevere through the hard conversations because it requires them to approach something that makes them feel uncomfortable. I'm only partially sorry to say this (and I know Collette will back me up on this), but get over it!! Swallow your pride and have those conversations. Lack of those conversations is why one couple we know in our extended family is basically just a man and woman living as roommates together. One wants to do all the right things and the other has zero desire to them but does them anyways because they feel “obligated” to. There's no discussion about it and therefore a perpetual situation of a toxic, unspoken agreement of “I'll just do this gospel thing on my own then if you don't want to.” The spouse who refuses to have the hard conversations is the only spouse who never apologizes, is quite rude most of the time when they don't get what they want and claims that “you only really hurt the people you love.” What an absolute farce and an empty existence.

Collette and I know better than that, work incessantly for better than that and have been able to maintain a beautifully unified marriage where we overcome things that make us feel held back. We don't give up on our faith in Christ and our covenants to sustain His chosen prophets or on each other when something is hard.

4. We don't raise our voices at each other.

We understand that expressing anger angrily has no place in any Christ centered home. This isn't just because I'm on the Autism spectrum. Having Asperger's syndrome for me means that the only loud noises I do have a really hard time with human voices speaking in frustration or anger. But this is not the reason why Collette and I avoid speaking to each other with tenseness in our voice. The reason is because it's un-Christlike and it's wrong. Simple as that. Drawing on some of the points above... when we resolve our disagreements, we simply make the effort to choose words that honestly and kindly address our feelings. If we can't find those words, we give each other time to think through things enough to find them. We realize that it is not only possible but essential to learn to SAY rather than SHOW how we feel when the emotion is unpleasant. Sometimes this makes conversations stop and go very suddenly, but if that's what it takes, it's worth it. Just because you don't raise your voice doesn't mean the weight of your words is lost. If your message isn't getting across, raising your voice doesn't force the idea into the person's mind more, it just transfers the their focus on to the messenger (you yourself) instead of the message. Find better words! Sometimes one of us can't find the words or come up with an analogy or whatever else sufficiently in the moment. All of the sudden, many times after praying for it, later on we realize a good way to say it and we politely ask for the other person's attention to explain ourselves and the other one immediately stops what they're doing and listens. We both know that after God and our Savior Jesus Christ, we are each other's first priority, period. This arrangement has made it sooo much easier to feel loved, valued, needed, enjoyed and safe, even with difficult emotions and challenges. As a result of doing these things,

-there ACTUALLY IS persistent peace between us, -the Spirit regularly dwells in our home, -we feel answers to prayers regularly, -we have the strength to stand up against the world (I just recently wrote a song that talks about that, too).

And we are still, 4 years into our marriage, in the phase of constantly saying “I love you” and wanting to kiss and cuddle, etc. a lot when we are together. That honeymoon feeling of loving everything about each other hasn't ended the entire time. It is still easy to overlook annoyances, we still love sharing the little things with each other, we still love trying new things together, and life hasn't “caught up with us” or made it any more difficult to keep the holy elements and spiritual connection of our marriage strong. Nor has any of life's normal challenges made our physical and emotional connection more difficult to maintain.

I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this because I'm telling you, if you 1. align your life and choices with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ 2. maintain an unyielding loyalty to counsel given to us from God's prophets (including ancient AND modern scripture) 3. simply refuse to let a relationship with the opposite sex be defined by anything other than the doctrine of Christ, no matter how strong your opinions are about it. All the marital problems we see our modern culture steeped in will easily and permanently disappear.

-You won't have arguments about money because you'll both see eye to eye about good financial habits and want to live by them. -You won't have struggles with physical connection because you'll both have a complete understanding of and love for the law of chastity and complete fidelity. -You won't struggle with things you would normally find bothersome about the opposite sex with your spouse because the eternal perspective you'll develop together will instill in both of you a deep desire to care less and things that matter less. Also, sin will become much less appealing. -On the opposite end of that, you won't be tempted to use selfish excuses like “I'm a woman, let me do the woman thing” or “I'm a guy, let me do the guy thing” as justification for laziness, shallow materialism, arrogance, unrighteous dominion, levity, idol worship, indulgence, vanity, gluttony or any other number of sinful behaviors and beliefs we often see falsely associated with real masculine of feminine nature.

I promise you all of the things that we see more frequently tearing apart marriages will disappear from yours if you start caring more about the Lord's standards than your own. And trust me, “There aren't any guys/girls like that out there anymore” is a cop out and a lie. BECOME that person and you'll automatically attract someone just like that. It really does work. I was reminding Collette yesterday that the first time I initially fell in love with her and asked to kiss her was in a moment where her love of the Savior shined through her countenance. Her spiritual glow made her physically more beautiful and exponentially more socially attractive. Believe me, the increase of physical and social beauty that comes with a greater spiritual glow as a result of your BEHAVIOR is a real thing.

If anyone has any questions and peaceful comments I welcome them here.

I have just seen so much bitterness about the idea of marriage between man and woman in our modern world, I felt what I have shared here is desperately needed. If this helped give you hope or brightened your day or motivated you, please share.

Divorce

 This is about #divorce. It's the first in a series of posts I recently did on Facebook about matters in society where I see widespread misunderstandings and outright lies about important issues. I know this will be controversial, especially considering the divorce rate in the US today, but I believe the following is something too many who posts about it seems to be missing. If you're patient enough to read through the whole thing, please at least consider what I'm about to say.

To start off with, disclaimer. I have never been divorced, so I can’t comment from my own experience about this, so please go easy on me in whatever judgment you may have in your heart regarding what I talk about here. I know I can't (and won't) even pretend to be any kind of expert on this. What I CAN comment on from personal experience is my having been in both a traumatic, unhealthy, incredibly complicated marriage AND a beautiful, joyful marriage with deep, healthy, meaningful connection and communication. I know first hand the signs of healthy Christ-centered marriages as well as those that are full of red flags and impossibly complicated circumstances. What has me worried is so many of the posts I have seen in the last few years that seem to be primarily focused on the legal side of this issue. Now I know I have many friends who are divorced and this has nothing to do directly with any of them, so let me just put that out there from the start. 

**So buckle up, here we go. If you have the patience and open heart to read through all of this and even consider some of the points I make, major kudos to you!**

The further you go back in history the more you will find contracts, promises and covenants entered into purely by word of mouth and people putting more social weight on and therefore more effort into keeping solely oral agreements. Like Denzel Washington said in the movie John Q, “your word is your bond, it’s all you have.” I am convinced that the reason lawyers - and anyone else who deals professionally in legal writ - have such great job security today is because of the rigid and even addictive nature of mankind’s attachment to making sure everything is fair. ( I wrote entire blog on LDS Blogs about why it's a good thing that life isn't fair: https://ldsblogs.com/46162/lifes-not-fair-relief ) To me this display of pedantic selfishness to make sure we get EXACTLY what we think we deserve, EXACTLY when we want it, riveted on what WE believe constitutes proper compensation for injustices against us is the antithesis of Christ’s teachings about how to respond to persecution and mistreatment.

How is it that, as a #society, we have come to cling so tightly to LACK of #trust and in our own self interests that the very first thought on some people’s minds in marriage is a #prenuptial agreements; and if divorce happens the very first thing people look for is #lawyers to make absolutely sure they “get their way”?People’s knee jerk reaction is to turn to mankind’s law like moths to a porch light, vultures to a dead animal or a cocaine addict to their next “fix” so we can “get #justice”.

I saw a divorced woman a while back who put up a very lengthy post about how wise and smart she was for learning from her one divorce what red flags to watch out for in men. And I’m sure she DID learn a lot from that experience, but she also thought that because of her traumatic experience with one guy that that somehow justified the belief that she simply “didn’t need men” in her life. She claimed in one breath that she didn’t hate men, but then proceeded to say that she needed a break from the “male species” among other things that suggested a feeling that we are unwelcome aliens from another planet. She spewed out such a long stream of horribly #sexist and #prejudiced diatribe and what was more disturbing was how many people praised her for it. I am SOOO thankful Collette is absolutely nothing like that. In fact as I was telling her about this post, she said, “No! Talk it out first, then Bishop, then therapy and then, as a very very last resort, legal counsel. That’s like plan infinity Z.” But hold on, I'll get back to that in a moment.

Collette and I talked about all the weighty things that have to do with marriage within our first two weeks of courtship. #Money, whether to pay tithing of gross or net income, all sorts of different aspects of raising children, what we would do if I ever fell back into #addiction, sex and what our sex life would look like, how we would apply all the controversial #gospel standards in our home… and a lot more. One thing we absolutely agreed on is that legal assistance in our marriage would be something to avoid at all costs and that the scriptures and local church leadership and words of the prophets along with counseling, if absolutely necessary, would be our exhaustive source of #mediation should serious conflict come up. I’m not saying that kind of thing IS possible in every marriage, but it CAN be. Because of that, we haven’t had a single fight in 3 1/2 years of marriage. We have even had one issue that, as peaceful as conversations have been about it, we had a very difficult time resolving until only recently. We did it by just continuing to converse calmly about it, not giving up, continuing to make it a matter of prayer, study and discussion when occasion permitted until we finally came to see more eye to eye about it very recently. 

It was something we very strongly disagreed on, but it was NEVER a contention point between the two of us because we CHOSE to allow the words of Christ and His servants to be the #mediator in the matter.

Where some say happy wife, happy life, Collette says “No! It’s happy spouse, happy house!” There is no sexism in our marriage, there is no sarcasm, no belittling, no name calling, no levity (pranks), no secrets, no lies, no screaming, no yelling matches, no stone-walling, no silent treatment, no slamming doors, no threats, no blackmail, no manipulation, and especially NO talk of divorce or even separation. This is not because we have a perfect marriage. There are still plenty of things that we disagree on and times where we have both expressed disappointment in each others choices (in fact one phone call I made recently almost lost Collette her job because of my bad timing) but ALL of it has been resolved by clinging to Christ and God’s laws instead of the weak and utterly #selfish institutions or cultural patterns of mortals. Only the #truth will set you free!

Collette was very familiar with my past of heavy sexual addiction and my recovery but the reason she chose to take a chance with me was because she asked the Lord about me, chose not the judge me by my past and trusted that since I put the Lord first I would put her second as every spouse should. She didn’t turn to societal statistics, input from other women around her or the like. She made it a relationship between me and her and the Lord, period.

Now, if you’ve read this far and are thinking “wait a minute buster, there are tons of marriages out there where there was no way to tell that he/she was gonna go all nuts like they did” and yes, I acknowledge that obviously there are way too many situations where one or both spouses get too relaxed after marriage or even after the girl says “yes” at the proposal and all of the sudden start to slack on remembering important stuff. There are too many relationships where one or both are #dishonest about their natures and then become abusive when things get serious. I get these situations happen and obviously when unrepentant #abuse or #criminal behavior is committed, going through proper legal channels is appropriate relative to the severity of the offense.

But having the first knee jerk reaction of getting legal help right away is much of what is ruining society. Anyone who wants to talk prenuptial agreements when marriage comes up has clearly been conditioned somehow to always plan for an escape hatch to get out of a promise, or ways to sneakily break contracts if things don’t go their way. Whether that’s from bad parents or merely their own cynical, unChristlike outlook on life, what it shows is a lack of commitment to what real marriage is about, the way God defined it, an ETERNAL union based on everything The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches.

I’m sure this post is likely to ruffle some feathers, especially from those who have been through multiple divorces, and I do readily acknowledge that there are aspects of divorce that, because I have never been through it, I can’t speak as an authoritative or wholly valid voice on the subject. But one person who can is Christ because he felt the pain of every person involved in EVERY divorce ever. I base my comments here on His word, so if you're going to have a problem with what I've said, take it up with God, not me. I welcome peaceful comments and questions here, but will remove those that are contentious. My hopes with this was just to talk about what I see as an elephant in the "room" of marriage and family.

If you really want a top notch advocate with an issue that seems unresolvable in your marriage, consider the following words from Tad R. Callister from "The Infinite Atonement":

"The Savior pleads our case for mercy. He is our advocate. He is the champion of our cause as no other can be. We have seen advocates of law before earthly tribunals - mere mortals who have argued their cases with spellbinding suspense, whose logic was flawless, mastery of the laws disarming, and powerful petitions compelling. Before such mortals, juries have sat in awe, almost with breathless wonder, moved and swayed by every glance, every crafted word, every passionate plea. Yet such advocates, almost Herculean heroes to their patrons, are no match to Him who pleads our case on high. He is the perfect proponent 'to appear in the presence of God for us' (Hebrews 9:24). How fortunate we are that [H]e is our 'advocate with the Father' (1 John 2:1)."

Even the worlds best lawyers are still fallible. The word of God is not. Lawyers are good for some things, but make it a knee jerk reaction to turn to God and/or local priesthood leaders even more earnestly when the temptation comes to seek legal help in marriage. As Christ did in Gethsemane, pray "more earnestly", pray for your spouse! (Any of you ever seen the movie War Room?) Turn to the scriptures and words of prophets more deeply, be willing change your perspective or opinion to match the word of God, whatever you need to do to make legal channels, as Collette called it, "plan infinity Z."

If you found this useful, please do share.