Eternal Courtship

Last night I got a message from a friend that I've known since 9th grade. My ex high school boyfriend has been back in Utah for a while and continue to be there for a little while. My friend told me a few weeks ago that my ex was talking to her and tickling her at a farewell that I was going to attend. She explained about how he is interested in her but she isn't and afraid of what to do if things go on. I gave the advice that it's not bad to go on a date, but if he asks to go out with him and if she doesn't feel comfortable then say no. This message last night was similar to what she wrote me a few weeks ago. He wants to date and cuddle with her when she comes to visit from college and she doesn't. At first, I'll admit I was annoyed that she came to me to ask similar questions from before of what to do. I still gave the advice to be honest with him. Sometimes I wonder why it's hard to say no if you are not uncomfortable.

This week's topic was about dating. Since I've been married for almost 4 months, I'll be honest in saying dating is hard,stressful,fun but I am glad to not have to go through that again. Even though I am married, it doesn't mean that dating stops for me, but I eternally date my husband/my best friend. It was interesting for me to hear about this topic now that I am married. Sure, there are still things that we talked about like building up intimacy that I can still relate to but I think about how I built up getting married. Before Johnny and I were dating, I remember I went on dates with other guys to simply have a good time where we were ourselves. Those were the best dates because when you are continually worried about finding the right person, or if you are going to date this person you barely met, you enjoy the date to a point or not at all. Dating is to get to know different people, to learn about yourself and create some new friendships.

Oppostion in All Things

In the Family Proclamation, it states, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal destiny of His children ... 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."

This week we talked about gender, roles of genders and even same sex attraction. It was interesting to see the different opinions that came out about each gender without trying to offend anyone when we create a masculine and feminine list. What I learned that we all have the same characteristics in our roles but some of those characteristics are stronger than others. One thing that I enjoyed when we wrote out the characteristics of Christ. Christ: loving, humble, compassionate, selfless, pure, nurturing, meek, wise and the list can go on forever. Looking over the list, I realized more how the world continually trying to define what is more masculine and more feminine. It is when the world has so much influence in ourselves that we do not realize how much even when we think it's only a little. Lets homosexuality for an example. I do not agree with the practice because Heavenly Father did not create us for that purpose. In class when we discuss this subject, I had a thought of how often does the media and the world tries to define that you are "homosexual" when you are different in a few ways. When our teacher mentioned he has had teenage male clients are concerned that they are going homosexual because they like home decorating with their mom or something similar, and revealed when they learn that they aren't. To be honest,Satan tries so hard to confuse us, to destroy the family and drag individuals as far away from eternal happiness. Every day, we need to remind ourselves of who we are and how Heavenly Father sees no only ourselves but everyone around us. The world can't define our eternal self as much as it tries to. Although we might not agree with people's decisions or belief from our own, we can understand that each individual is a child of God like us.

Keeping up Appearances

Over the last month, Johnny and I have been watching a British sitcom called "Keeping up Appearances." It is a show about a British married woman who tries to live or show she is from upper class (or almost like royalty) while living middle-class. For example of this, her last name is Bucket but she tries to pass it off as Bouquet. She has three sisters, which one is rich and the other two are living more lower class. Through the different episodes, she is always trying to hide that her family is from a lower class and she attempts to look better than everyone else, but at the end of each episode things end in ways that she feared.

This show goes along with what we were taking about in class this week: Social class. It amazed me how many people care about what class you are in when you are surrounded with people in different social classes. Not to mention, people constantly try to "keep up their appearances." Growing up, I heard about the social classes but never cared because I was mainly surrounded by people who were about the same type of class. I haven't ran into my life where I treated differently because of my class. We watched a few different videos about the social classes in how people can tell which one people are in. What surprised me the most was about a single-mother named Tammy who is poor and about children. She walks 10 miles to and from work at Burger King just to provide for her family. She doesn't have a car or license. Her son is ashamed at how his family lives and tries to act like he was better than his family just by simply the way he dresses better. (It reminded me of Keeping up Appearances).

I personally think that we shouldn't allow our social class define who we are or need to be. We are all Children of God. Yes there are people who have higher or lower income, more or less resources, but it is more or less what we do with our resources, whether we waste it away or use it wisely.

Where We Stand

Have you ever really thought about the relationship you have with each member of your family? Did you realize that's each relationship is different? Today in family relations, we were talking about each of our family system and coming to realize the relationship that not only I would have with each member but my parents and siblings as well. It became interesting to understand the type of relationship and boundaries that is set in my family. Here is an example of this. Johnny and I likes making sounds in a sense to communicate(getting attention) but also to have some fun. I wouldn't expect family members to do the same because at times, it doesn't make sense to them when it does to us. There are things both Johnny and I do that I wouldn't do with the other members of my family(the same goes for everyone else). That's not a bad thing and here is why. Each of us is different with personalities and characters that reacts differently to each other. Sure, there are some people who doesn't get along with their family members but just because the boundaries seem set, it doesn't mean it won't change over time.

The Things We Learn

When taking classes, you start find how different classes intertwine with the same material. This is how my week has been between research, management and theory. This week in class, we've been talking about family research (not family history) in how we need to be careful when we read a study/research. Often times, there can a lot of indications that could have an impact of whether the study is accurate or not or even be bias. One thing that stood out to me in class yesterday was how difficult it is to do family research when the word "family" could mean many things to different people and not to mention that every family is different. What has made me sad that there are people in this nation that are trying to change the definition of "marriage" in the Constitution so anything could go. Even if that ever happens, no one can really change the true definition of "marriage" because the Lord has continually said over and over again that marriage is only between a man and a woman. To me, that is an eternal law and definition. We were created the way we are for a great purpose, but there are many distractions today that a lot of us forgotten it, have no desire or believes some thing is more important. I believe for this reason, that family research has been growing is because people want to understand why marriages are failing so quickly and how they can improve their own. One thing that I have understood in both my theory class and family relations is that there are a lot of factors in having a successful marriage not just one. The reason is because when we focus on one thing, we'll tend to forget the other things that we still need to continually tend and to nurture.

I came to another discovery in class, which was a realization of how many jobs, fields of study or professions have families as the target. The reason they target families is because family is important to everyone whether it's the family they grew up with or the one they've created. Everyone wants to make sure their children grows in family environment with good education and of course to be successful. These jobs/professions spend a lot of money to do research about the family in to gain understanding and to help those struggling with their marriage and why. I didn't think about this earlier, but this country/world would be nothing if there were no families. Families are the key to everything in why we do the things we do whether we are single or married.

Family Relations

For those who has been reading my blog for a while(my family), I will be using my blog for my family relations class for this semester. I'll be writing weekly about my thoughts and opinions from things we are studying about family relations. For those from my class, let me introduce myself. :)


My name is Rebecca Carl. I am a Marriage and Family Studies Major. In other words, I learning skills and gaining knowledge to mainly help me to be a mother/wife and one day be a marriage therapist. I am the youngest in my family. I have 5 siblings (1 brother and 4 sisters) who are all married and have children. There are many things I enjoy such as dancing, drawing, scrapbooking, doing things outdoors, play the violin and much more. I mostly enjoy spending time with husband and teasing him as he teases me.

I met my husband my first week of college at BYU-Idaho during Summer Session of 2009. He served a mission in Honduras and enjoys different languages. He was in my first FHE group. When we were introducing ourselves, he made a comment that he enjoyed ballroom dancing as well(since I mentioned I love ballroom dancing). We became best friends intently. From that point on, we looked out for each other, could tell everything to each other and hung out with our friends. He could make me smile and laugh very easily. We were always there for each other through the difficult times. It took us about two years, but a little over two months ago, we(at last)got married in the Salt Lake Temple and been enjoying life together.


Hope you all enjoy my blog these next few months. Please free to comment. Enjoy. :)

Waiting for Spring

There is only four more weeks of the winter semester left. I am getting excited for spring semester to be rolling. Other than the fact that I love spring, there is no secret as to why I am even more excited than normal. After a few months of not having Johnny around, it explains a lot. :)

This semester has been great, cold, and a little hard. I have been enjoying mostly each of my classes. I have learned a lot from each one and been doing my best in each of them. Homework has taken over my life at the time, but I try to fight it off as much as it is coming. Hahaha! My favorite classes are Biostats (a lot better than Calculus!), the Developing World, my English, Marriage Prep and of course my dance class. My dance class has been great in learning the Quickstep and the waltz. Only a two weeks away before the competition in competing each other.This past week in my orchestra class, I had a girl who asked my stand partner and I if we would play her piece in a recital. We agreed. So we are in a quartet plus two flutes in playing a Pentra piece that this girl composed. The same week we have our concerts for orchestra and band is when we will be playing this piece which is only next week! I am excited and also nervous.

My roommates (Shanna, Chelsey, Minnie and Jessica) have all been great, funny, crazy, hard working and awesome. I admire each of them and have had a great time. It has been awesome to have roommates once again where there is no contention in the apartment and all of us being ourselves. There has been many moments where one of us will be in the front room doing homework. Slowly, one by one each of us will join them with our laptops and begin doing our homework. It was always funny when that happened. There have also been nights where there has been nuff-gun war, being a little crazy, cooking dinner and more. I gotten out with a few of roommates and done a few activities on campus. I have been once a while getting out to be with other friends like my old roommates, Joe and Keiri, and many others. Also making new friends as well.

Well there isn't too much that is new and really exciting in my life. This semester is coming to a close fairly soon with tests, papers, concerts, competitions and much more. For now, I am waiting for spring to come as I continue finishing this semester. :)