Author’s Note: The principles in this article can help improve any marriage, but are not meant to be a solution to all marriage problems. For situations involving abuse, professional help is strongly encouraged.

His new ethnically diverse painting was bound for the DC Temple, but his toddlers had a last, unwanted addition to make.

3 Nephi 27-30; 4 Nephi

All my life I have been taught to accept Church callings, knowing that despite my inadequacies, with the Lord’s help I could do my best. However, in September 2009, the bishop of our ward came over to our home for what my husband and I assumed was a friendly, get-to-know-you-better kind of visit. We were both completely stunned when he asked me, at age seventy-eight, to be the Primary president in the Bloomington Seventh Ward. My first response was, “Bishop, what are you thinking?” Why the surprise? My age aside, I informed him that I don’t see very well, I don’t hear very well, and I certainly don’t breathe as well as I did when I was younger. The bishop explained to me that as he reflected upon a new Primary president, my name kept coming to his mind. Although he tried to dismiss the feeling, after praying about the matter, he still felt impressed to call me. He even went to the temple to pray about who should be Primary president, and the impression continued that I should be called to this position. And so when he came to my home and offered his explanation as to why I was being called, I knew I could not say no. Could you say no, with such an explanation? Of course, when I told my daughter about the conversation, she said, “But did you tell him that you can’t sing?”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"The way you choose to respond to someone who looks at pornography will have a huge impact on your relationship with them, and their relationship with themselves."

Introduction

Shuffling through dirt and mud, stumbling over cold stones that rubbed their skin raw, Jane Elizabeth Manning James and her family inched toward Nauvoo, Illinois, barefoot. It was 1843; James was one of the first black converts to the Church and lived in a time where some people saw her as property first and a human being second.

My grandmother, Verla Butler Roundy, was an amazing woman. She was a mother to many of her grandchildren, and others who took refuge in her home. I was one of the lucky recipients of that mothering, privileged to be in her care. Following my parents’ divorce, I took on some of the responsibility for my five younger siblings, which was a lot for a 13-year old to bear. She willingly took us into her heart and home and bandaged our broken hearts. It’s been almost a year since she passed from this life. As difficult as it is to let her go, any of us who were lucky enough to know her can remember the love she gave to us, and carry that love in our hearts.

Everyone wants to be happy—and for good reason. Happy people earn more money and are more likely to get married and stay married. They also attract more friends, are more productive at work, and even outlive their gloomier counterparts by about nine years.