How Do the Roles of Men and Women Complement Each Other in Marriage

-What is the difference between men and women?

-List traits on the board and add to it as we go throughout the lesson

Start by reading a few paragraphs from the Proclamation to the family…

Then talk about the roles of both genders in the family

MOTHERS:

The proclamation teaches that “mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” Nurturing refers to parenting behaviors such as warmth, support, bonding, attachment, recognizing each child’s unique abilities, and attending to children’s needs. Nurturing in and of itself is more important in the development of a child than is any particular method or technique of child rearing. It hardly needs saying that nurturing is best carried out in a stable, safe, family context.

A mother’s nurturing love arouses in children, from their earliest days on earth, an awakening of the memories of love and goodness they experienced in their premortal existence. Because our mothers love us, we learn, or more accurately remember, that God also loves us.

-I shared my feelings about giving birth and the connect I felt between heaven and earth, and how that experience is like no other

President Gordon B. Hinckley, with his usual sensitive, loving spirit, gives us this wise perspective:

“I recognize … that there are some women (it has become very many in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can. I hope that if you are employed full-time you are doing it to ensure that basic needs are met and not simply to indulge a taste for an elaborate home, fancy cars, and other luxuries. The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place.

Taking care of small, dependent, and demanding children is never ending and often nerve-racking. Mothers must not fall into the trap of believing that “quality” time can replace “quantity” time. Quality is a direct function of quantity—and mothers, to nurture their children properly, must provide both. To do so requires constant vigilance and a constant juggling of competing demands. It is hard work, no doubt about it.

FATHERS:

I had my husband come in and talk about the roles of the men. Mostly about the three P's...Preside, Provide and Protect

-He shared a personal experience of his own father.

BOTH GENDERS TOGETHER:

-Share experiences where having both genders in your marriage has helped you fulfill your roles as parents/marriage partners

 Full and equal partnerships. Men and women joined together in marriage need to work together as a full partnership. However, a full and equal partnership between men and women does not imply the roles played by the two sexes are the same in God’s grand design for His children. As the proclamation clearly states, men and women, though spiritually equal, are entrusted with different but equally significant roles. These roles complement each other. Men are given stewardship over the sacred ordinances of the priesthood. To women, God gives stewardship over bestowing and nurturing mortal life, including providing physical bodies for God’s spirit children and guiding those children toward a knowledge of gospel truths. These stewardships, equally sacred and important, do not involve any false ideas about domination or subordination. Each stewardship is essential for the spiritual progression of all family members, parents and children alike.

Principles for marriage and families. From the proclamation we learn that “successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” Parents should work to create loving, eternal connections with their children. Reproof or correction will sometimes be required. But it must be done sensitively, persuasively, with an increase of love thereafter lest the child esteem the parent to be an enemy we need to teach by example and in love.

-End with your testimony of the importance of gender roles and of being a woman. 

Why Are Covenants Important in My Life?

Start by asking the girls...

What is a covenant?

-write the answers on the board

Bible Dictionary-Sometimes denotes an agreement between persons (1 Sam. 23:18) or nations (1 Sam. 11:1); more often between God and man; but in this latter case it is important to notice that the two parties to the agreement do not stand in the relation of independent and equal contractors. God in His good pleasure fixes the terms, which man accepts. The same word is sometimes rendered “testament.”

The gospel is so arranged that principles and ordinances are received by covenant, placing the recipient under strong obligation and responsibility to honor the commitment. Thus the severe consequences to Ananias and Sapphira, who deliberately broke their covenant and lied unto God (Acts 5:1–11).

What is a covenant you have made, and what are the terms and blessings?

-Mosiah 18:8-10

We enter into covenants by priesthood ordinances, sacred rituals that God has ordained for us to manifest our commitment. Our foundational covenant, for example, the one in which we first pledge our willingness to take upon us the name of Christ, is confirmed by the ordinance of baptism. It is done individually, by name. By this ordinance, we become part of the covenant people of the Lord and heirs of the celestial kingdom of God.

Other sacred ordinances are performed in temples built for that very purpose. If we are faithful to the covenants made there, we become inheritors not only of the celestial kingdom but of exaltation, the highest glory within the heavenly kingdom, and we obtain all the divine possibilities God can give (see D&C 132:20). -Elder Christofferson

How do our covenants strengthen us?

What is it about making and keeping covenants with God that gives us the power to smile through hardships, to convert tribulation into triumph, to “be anxiously engaged in a good cause, … and bring to pass much righteousness” (D&C 58:27)?

In the covenant path we find a steady supply of gifts and help. “Charity never faileth” (1 Corinthians 13:8; Moroni 7:46), love begets love, compassion begets compassion, virtue begets virtue, commitment begets loyalty, and service begets joy. We are part of a covenant people, a community of Saints who encourage, sustain, and minister to one another. As Nephi explained, “And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them” (1 Nephi 17:3). -Elder Christofferson

Give us added Faith

All this is not to say that life in the covenant is free of challenge or that the obedient soul should be surprised if disappointments or even disasters interrupt his peace. If you feel that personal righteousness should preclude all loss and suffering, you might want to have a chat with Job.

This brings us to a second way in which our covenants supply strength—they produce the faith necessary to persevere and to do all things that are expedient in the Lord. Our willingness to take upon us the name of Christ and keep His commandments requires a degree of faith, but as we honor our covenants, that faith expands. In the first place, the promised fruits of obedience become evident, which confirms our faith. Secondly, the Spirit communicates God’s pleasure, and we feel secure in His continued blessing and help. Thirdly, come what may, we can face life with hope and equanimity, knowing that we will succeed in the end because we have God’s promise to us individually, by name, and we know He cannot lie (see Enos 1:6; Ether 3:12). –Elder Christofferson

Early Church leaders in this dispensation confirmed that adhering to the covenant path provides the reassurance we need in times of trial: “It was [the knowledge that their course in life conformed to the will of God] that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take … not only the spoiling of their goods, and the wasting of their substance, joyfully, but also to suffer death in its most horrid forms; knowing (not merely believing) that when this earthly house of their tabernacle was dissolved, they had a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Cor. 5:1.)” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 67).

They further pointed out that in offering whatever sacrifice God may require of us, we obtain the witness of the Spirit that our course is right and pleasing to God (seeLectures on Faith, 69–71). With that knowledge, our faith becomes unbounded, having the assurance that God will in due time turn every affliction to our gain. Some of you have been sustained by that faith as you have endured those who point fingers of scorn from the “great and spacious building” and cry, “Shame!” (see1 Nephi 8:26–27), and you have stood firm with Peter and the Apostles of old, “rejoicing that [you] were counted worthy to suffer shame for [Christ’s] name” (Acts 5:41).

Have you had any experiences where people treated you that way, and you found comfort in your faith?

-Have the girls share their experiences or share one of your own.

Strengthen us through the power of Godliness

We have considered, first, the empowering blessings and, second, the endowment of faith that God grants to those who keep their covenants with Him. A final aspect of strength through covenants that I will mention is the bestowal of divine power. Our covenant commitment to Him permits our Heavenly Father to let His divine influence, “the power of godliness” (D&C 84:20), flow into our lives. He can do that because by our participation in priesthood ordinances we exercise our agency and elect to receive it. Our participation in those ordinances also demonstrates that we are prepared to accept the additional responsibility that comes with added light and spiritual power.

In all the ordinances, especially those of the temple, we are endowed with power from on high. ⁴ This “power of godliness” comes in the person and by the influence of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost is part of the new and everlasting covenant. It is an essential part of our baptism, the baptism of the Spirit. It is the messenger of grace by which the blood of Christ is applied to take away our sins and sanctify us (see 2 Nephi 31:17). It is the gift by which Adam was “quickened in the inner man” (Moses 6:65). It was by the Holy Ghost that the ancient Apostles endured all that they endured and by their priesthood keys carried the gospel to the known world of their day.

-End with your testimony of the covenants you've made

-For the handout I got some edible lego candy and wrote..."Build your life on making and keep covenants with the Lord."

AVOIDING TEMPTATION

This was a special lesson "Off book" that was very applicable to my Young Women at the time...

First show the picture of the Nephite and the Lamanite. Talk about the differences in what they are wearing. Ask the girls what they would rather wear into battle. Why?

-Give the girls the example of the Lamamite being “open to temptation” because he isn’t wearing his armor.

-What is our armor today?

“Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day. …

LOINS- girt about with truth

BREASTPLATE- of righteousness;

HELMET- of salvation

SWORD- of truth

FEET- shod with preparation of the gospel

SHIELD-of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

-Elder Maxwell also talks about keeping the law of chastity as being a shield….

“By lowering or losing that shield, the much-needed blessings of heaven are lost. No person or nation can prosper for long without those blessings.”

-A sad example of someone not using the Armor of God is King David.

            -Tell the story of King David and Bathsheba

“There are so many ways to keep the shielding seventh commandment firmly in place. Instructively, for instance, David’s fall, at least in part, was facilitated because he was not where duty lay: “It came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, … David tarried still at Jerusalem” (2 Sam. 11:1). Then, as you know, came the lustful view from the roof and all the sadness that followed. Implicit, therefore, in the instruction “Stand ye in holy places” is to avoid indulgent tarrying (D&C 87:8; see also Matt. 24:15).

Those who live “after the manner of happiness” (2 Ne. 5:27) also wisely develop protective, spiritual manners. These manners are reflected in their proper dress, language, humor, and music, thereby sending the signal of determined discipleship”. (see Prov. 23:7). –Elder Maxwell

-Why was David tempted?

            -He was not where he was suppose to be. Wrong place at the wrong time.

-At anytime David could have repented, but he kept trying to cover his sins instead of doing what was right

-Because of that he kept committing worse and worse sins, that ultimately ended in murder.

-What ultimately happened to David?

-David temporally didn’t have any consequences. He still remained King, and kept his full power. So on the outside it might look like he could sin and no real consequences.

 But as we know spiritual consequences are often much harder

-      BIBLE DICTIONARY-“Like Saul he was guilty of grave crimes; but unlike Saul, he was capable of true contrition and was therefore able to find forgiveness, except in the murder of Uriah. As a consequence David is still unforgiven, but he received a promise that the Lord would not leave his soul in hell. He will be resurrected at the end of the Millennium. Because of his transgressions, he has fallen from his exaltation (D&C 132:39).”

-A GOOD example of someone putting on the whole armor of God is Joseph in Egypt

            -He was tempted by Potopher’s wife and ran away.

-But even in the example of Joseph he didn’t know right away the consequence of making a good choice. On the outside it may have even looked like he was punished for making the right choice. But little did he know God was laying out an amazing future for him. He would then become 2^nd only to Pharaoh. We may never know how one choice can ripple throughout our lives and change our course for good or evil.

-Joseph had to stand alone for many years before he started seeing the good his making the right choice.

           

In certain times and circumstances, discipleship requires us to be willing to stand alone! Our willingness to do so, here and now, is consistent with Christ’s kneeling alone, there and then, in Gethsemane. In the final atoning process, “none were with [Him]” (D&C 133:50; see also Matt. 26:38–45).

As we take our stand, the faithful will not be alone—not that alone, however. Of necessity, the angel who stood by Christ in Gethsemane to strengthen Him left Him (see Luke 22:43). If we hold aloft the shield of faith in God and faith in His commandments, His angels will be “round about [us], to bear [us] up” and “have charge over [us]” (D&C 84:88; D&C 109:22). Of this promise, I testify. And now, therefore, in terms of the weather in our souls, brothers and sisters, I testify that we set the dial. We so determine the degree of our happiness in this and the next world. I likewise testify that our compliance with God’s commandments, including the seventh, invites God to place His hand on ours as we set the dial. It is the hand of Him who desires to give us all that He hath (see D&C 84:38). –Elder Maxwell

-Another GOOD example is Captain Moroni

-Moroni at that time lead the armies of the Nephites. He wasn’t the ruler or the prophet. He was just a good man who stood up for good and for freedom. He stood alone and single handedly reminded an entire nation of the promises they made to God and to each other. He knew what was right and stood up for it.

-Alma 48:17

-We can stand above the rest like Moroni when we remember the promises we made to Heavenly Father and stand for what we know to be right.

-Give the girls their own “title’s of liberty” to write and remind themselves of their own promises they’ve made to the Lord.

Why Do I Need to Forgive Others

-Start by following up with the girls on last week's lesson challenge

-Begin by asking the Young Women to think of a time when they have needed to forgive.

“I imagine that every person on earth has been affected in some way by the destructive spirit of contention, resentment, and revenge. Perhaps there are even times when we recognize this spirit in ourselves. When we feel hurt, angry, or envious, it is quite easy to judge other people, often assigning dark motives to their actions in order to justify our own feelings of resentment.” –Elder Uctdorf

“We all depend on the Savior; none of us can be saved without Him. Christ’s Atonement is infinite and eternal. Forgiveness for our sins comes with conditions. We must repent, and we must be willing to forgive others. Jesus taught: “Forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not … [stands] condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin”³ and “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”- Elder Uctdorf

-This seems easy when applies to others. We can often see the effects of it in others, and how THEIR judgements effect YOU, but it is much harder for us to apply this principle to ourselves.

-“When it comes to our own prejudices and grievances, we too often justify our anger as righteous and our judgment as reliable and only appropriate. Though we cannot look into another’s heart, we assume that we know a bad motive or even a bad person when we see one. We make exceptions when it comes to our own bitterness because we feel that, in our case, we have all the information we need to hold someone else in contempt.” - Elder Uctdorf

-Share a personal experience about how being unforgiving effected you.

-What do I do when my friends aren’t being good friends to me?

            -Be the kind of friend that you want to be. Treat them the way you want them to treat you. Love and serve them more.

-How do I love someone who I don’t feel like they love me?

            - When we think of Jesus’ life on earth. There were many people to did not like him or treat him the way he deserved, or the way he treated everyone. Sometimes YOU have to be the bigger person. Love those that want to harm you, pray for them, serve them, so in the end at least one person will have had a change of heart…YOU!

-Ask the girls to share an experience where they forgave someone and how it made them feel.

-D&C 64:10 “I the Lord will forgive…

This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: STOP IT! It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. God is our Father. We are His children. We are all brothers and sisters. I don’t know exactly how to articulate this point of not judging others with sufficient eloquence, passion, and persuasion to make it stick. I can quote scripture, I can try to expound doctrine, and I will even quote a bumper sticker I recently saw. It was attached to the back of a car whose driver appeared to be a little rough around the edges, but the words on the sticker taught an insightful lesson. It read, “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.”

-We are all make mistakes and we all rely on the Lord to be able to repent and become better people then we were before so that we can become perfect one day. Love people as Christ loves us…unconditionally