Monday, March 29, 2010
Conclusion to Communications(sad) but not the end of my posts
So This is not everything that I have learned from this class, but I cant really write all of it down. There is just too much that I have seen, learned, experienced and felt to ever really express all of it. But what i can say is that i have not only learned about communication skills, but i have improved them by applying what i have learned in my live. I can spend my entire life learning the deepest and most fascinating secrets to love, life and other mysteries, but it wouldn't mean anything if i didn't us it to help others or myself. So with this in mind i took the lessons from this class to try and improve my relationship with others and my communication skills with others. Honestly this class helped me so much and i think that it was exactly what i needed to improve some relationships with my family and help me to gain the relationship that i have now with Jacqueline my future wife who i will marry April 10, 2010. This class what amazing! It was a lot of work but by far had some of the most noticeable rewards i have ever had from a class. I am most definitely walking away with a lot of valuable knowledge that i will continue to improve my life, and the lives around me. To be conscious of my actions and perceive the needs of those who i love. This is most definitely something in my life that will be valued.
Pictures of Family
Here are a couple of photos of me and my family!!
My family when i had just gotten off the plane from Brasil.
And here are some of my cousins that came to see me off!
This is me and my family right before i got on the plane to go to Brasil!!
I believe that it is so important have a very secure and trusting communication circle. This circle to me is my family and i am so thankful that they would support me in all that i do! I love them so much and they are some of my best friends!
And this is Jacqueline, I love her so much and she is my best friend of all.
My family when i had just gotten off the plane from Brasil.
And here are some of my cousins that came to see me off!
This is me and my family right before i got on the plane to go to Brasil!!
I believe that it is so important have a very secure and trusting communication circle. This circle to me is my family and i am so thankful that they would support me in all that i do! I love them so much and they are some of my best friends!
And this is Jacqueline, I love her so much and she is my best friend of all.
Here are some of the topic that we covered throughout the class and some videos that i feel go well with them.
Self perception
The way we look at ourselves really has an affect on how we communicate with others around us. I think that it's very important to realize who we are and relize our potential.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_Rl8aQxII
Emotions
Somtimes in communication it is important to control our emotions. I don't think we should make big life decisions when we are too emotionally attached.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W02pZGKvXM
Language
What kind of language we use helps us....or not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNA5wLTAOzI
Body language
Body language can accent what we are saying making the message stronger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmun8GK6o2c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qyMmqlOdWs
Communication climates
Its important to create climates that will help with communications not ruin it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87AruGKGo5c
Relationships and conflict
Sometime we have relationship patterns with conflict...good or bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pw_eX97TUw
Self perception
The way we look at ourselves really has an affect on how we communicate with others around us. I think that it's very important to realize who we are and relize our potential.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_Rl8aQxII
Emotions
Somtimes in communication it is important to control our emotions. I don't think we should make big life decisions when we are too emotionally attached.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W02pZGKvXM
Language
What kind of language we use helps us....or not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNA5wLTAOzI
Body language
Body language can accent what we are saying making the message stronger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmun8GK6o2c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qyMmqlOdWs
Communication climates
Its important to create climates that will help with communications not ruin it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87AruGKGo5c
Relationships and conflict
Sometime we have relationship patterns with conflict...good or bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pw_eX97TUw
Saturday, March 27, 2010
More of my Responses and papers
So here are some more assgnments and projects that we have had.
This first one is a compliment assignment where we were asked to compliment 3 people and at least one of them had to be a complete stranger. It turned out to be a very interesting assignment so here is my writ up on it.
Compliment Assignment
19/01/10
This assignment was such a good experience for me. At first I thought it was going to be really awkward and difficult for me because to give a totally random stranger a compliment I thought would be one of the weirdest experiences of my entire life. But it didn’t turn out that way this weekend. I was able to compliment three people successfully without any awkward results I actually really liked the results that I received I actually ended up having an absolutely amazing weekend.
So after thinking praying about who I would like to compliment this weekend I just decided that it would be best if it were a legitimate compliment and not something that I had planned. I really wanted it to be something that came to my mind in the moment and not something that I just had to do for an assignment. So I prayed that Heavenly Father would do what he has always done just give me the opportunity to help others and just provide me with a chance to sincerely compliment people that I met and who I already knew.
I decided that I could compliment one of my mission friends, Jon Monson, who I had just recently come in contact with. He invited me over for some Brazilian food because we were both craving it so much and we had the chance to sit down and talk, catch up and just eat so much we felt like we were going to explode! I found myself wanting to let him know how great it was to know him and how wonderful he had made my mission experience I think he really appreciated that and we were able to have fun and strengthen a friendship that has been absent from my life for a while.
Now the stranger that I complimented was an older man as I was going to work. I was really stressed out with my wedding, guests, pictures, work and homework that I was just not having a very good day. But when I got out of my car there he was a friendly smiling old man with and expression that I could only describe it as the loving grandpa smile. He immediately asked me how I was doing and told me how wonderful it was to run into a friend like me. I just looked back at him and expressed my thanks to him that it was so refreshing to her a friendly voice that could relax me and make me feel much better. His name was Dave Watkins, he was the realtor for my building where I worked. We had a short conversation where I discovered that he knew a good majority of my family and recognized them as a wonderful, strong and upstanding family for who he had great respect. I felt so good and realized the great blessing I have in my life to be a part of my family and to represent such a well known name that is respected by many to be a good family. So as usual the Lord answered my prayers and gave me two chances to really give heartfelt compliments and not only to bless someone else’s life but to also have mine so richly blessed in the process too.
The last person I complimented was my fiancé, Jacqueline Dustin. This weekend I just looked at her and thought about how happy I was with her, I lucky I felt, how much I truly loved her and how excited I am to spend the rest of eternity with her. Then I just said it to her. We ended up having a long conversation of how we felt about each other and we even retraced our relationship in which I was just reminded of every reason I fell in love with her. Honestly, I loved her more and more each day and with this compliment and conversation that resulted from it I was so amazingly happy that this weekend just passed with me floating because of how happy I was to be with her. With every compliment I tried to give I was blessed by the Lord with so much more that I had given. This project totally made my weekend.
Another assignment that we had was to listen. We were instructed to work on our listening skills by better listening to someone that we wanted to improve our relationship with. It worked, I listened, realized my listening flaws and tried to fix them.
Me Listening
15/03/10
For this assignment we were instructed to choose a person that we would try to listen to better. We were told that it would help our relationship with this person. The person that I chose to listen to better was my fiancée Jacqueline Dustin. I figured this would be good for our relationship because lately the stress of the planning for the wedding, school, homework, health and work was really starting to weigh down on us and cause us some arguments that we really didn’t need at this moment. So our relationship was suffering from a lack of or misunderstanding of communication.
When I started this little listening project I realized that listening was actually really hard. I had previously thought that it would be easy because I am always with her and in my mind I was always listening to her. But it turned out to be a little tougher that it seemed. So I decided to try and recognize all of my listening problems that I may have for the first couple of days of the listening week and what I found out really caught me off guard in what I had been expecting. I caught myself trying to talk while she was speaking. I always wanted to interrupt her in the middle of her stories, or give my opinion in the middle of our discussions. I had a lot of problems with listening. I was constantly thinking about what I was going to say before she had even finished the sentence. I even noticed that when she was talking for a long period of time I would only remember the last part of the conversation because I wouldn’t really be listening until the very end of the conversation. I had so many listening problems! I couldn’t believe how many problems I had with listening. Especially listening to Jacqueline who I loved! I really couldn’t believe my ears. They just wouldn’t listen. I realized I had a big communication problem that I needed to fix. So I decided to really try to listen to Jacqueline and follow what Sister Embree’s had told us that if I listening intently and attentively that it would help my relationship.
So beginning more toward the middle of the week that I had chosen to really work on my listening skills and try to fix all of my problems that I had been noticing at the beginning of the week. This wasn’t going to be as easy as it had seemed in the beginning of the assignment. I began to listen more to Jacqueline, like really listen to her and not going to lie it was really hard. I had learned earlier in class attentively listening to a person and staying aware of the content in the conversation takes a lot of energy and effort from the listener. I began to improve my listening skills by first trying to minimize the number of times that I found myself wanting to interrupt her in the middle of her conversation. After I was able to do that I found out that the amount of time I spent planning my response or anticipating the flow of the conversation was affected as well because when I focused on her not interrupting her I was not thinking about my response I was actually listening to her. Then on top of that, even though I was very mentally exhausted by this I managed to begin to listen to the whole conversation. When I finally put all of these elements together I found out that I was not only in tune to what she was saying but also the emotion that was behind what she was saying. I think that I was much more open and responsive to her content messages and also more attentive to the relational messages that she was sending as well. I felt that I could understand her needs more and more as time went on and I was really trying to fulfill her needs when I would hear and recognize them.
In conclustion I felt that Sister Embree was right, that effective listening actually helped me to improve my relationship with Jacqueline. I intend to try and continue to listen attentively to her throughout our relationship and marriage. I may not be able to be attentive all the time but I think it is like praying or learning how to play a new sport. That the more that you practice and work at it the better and more natural the action becomes so I think that I can really increase the time that I can effectively listen to her and be attentive in the conversation. So I guess you can say that I have a new lifetime goal to add to my new list and not only will I do this with Jacqueline but I think that if I can better my listening skills I can apply them to school, work, future kids and all parts of my life.
This next assignment was a response to a very touching story that we read for class.
Response to: “A True Story” by Paul Villard
Response to “A True Story”
23/03/10
Here is a perfect little story about two people who needed each other, but never knew the true extent of their actions for a long time. First, a young boy whose childlike innocence and need for attention drew him to his family phone to talk to the operator who he named “Information Please”. After the first encounter with “Information please” he went back to ask information about everything. Feeding a pet chipmunk, studying arithmetic, planning adventures to distant places and even comforting him when a family pet died. This little boy grew up with this clear, tender voice giving him all the information he needed fulfilling his needs when he needed someone to just listen to him and council him when he was in need. Eventually the boy moved to another part of the country leaving his best friend behind that he only knew as “Information please”.
Years later this young boy had grown to a man attending college and yet still reminiscing about his old friend the operator. He was grateful for her patience in always listening to him and helping him find the information that he needed. Then when he was passing through the part of the country that he had grown up talking to the operator he decided to call and see if his childhood friend and mentor were still there. When called and asked for “Information Please” he heard the same clear and kind voice that he had talked to all those years ago. It turns out “Information Please” had a name, Sally, and she was just as excited to talk to the once young boy who had unknowingly made her life better. Sally didn’t have any children and always looked forward to him calling so that she could somehow give council to a child that she didn’t have. They both didn’t realize the extent of their actions all those years ago. He would have grown up all the same and she would have continued to be an operator and yet their presence in each other’s lives had such an impact that once older friends became reacquainted very quickly forming a new friendship. Then one day the boy called his old friend only to hear that she had passed away weeks earlier. But she had left a message she had once given to him before when his pet canary had died, she told him, “Paul, there are other worlds to sing in.”
This story for some strange reason had a very great impact on me. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I just felt happy for Paul and Sally that they both had each other when they needed someone. It may seem all coincidence or by chance that good fortune comes across us and/or others. That luck just happens to play its part in giving us needs that we have and that the game of chance favors us in the exact moment we are unconsciously looking for something or someone. But in this case, to me it was something very different, something that wasn’t just by chance or coincidence, but something that was influenced by some divine plan. We have a God, a Heavenly Father so to speak that is our ultimate mentor and comforter because we are his children. He knows us so well that he gives us gifts like this operator or like a little boy calling you every day that in the moment may seem so simple that we don’t realize their impact until later in our lives. It comforts me to know that He is watching over us and He knows exactly what we need when we need it and it is by his divine plan for us to be happy and He will help us anyway that he can. You may ask why then do bad things happen? Well, we all make our own decisions and sometimes bad things happen because others choose so and in turn it has a negative influence on our lives. But bad things happen to help us learn and grow and even direct us. The reason this little boy went to talk to the operator was because he had hit his finger with a hammer and needed someone to talk to, someone to comfort him because no one else was home. So what did he do? He called the operator and consequently began a friendship that was more than beneficial to the two of them. So when we act in our lives and things happen, good things or bad things, how do we react? How do we take these little moments seem like nothing and yet could shape our personality in who we are and who we will become? I like to think that I would always be aware of these moments but I know I can’t be, the best I can do is to be observant, listen to others, help them in service, and be a positive influence in this divine plan. This was a wonderful little story that I enjoyed greatly. Its stories like these that give us happiness to know and remind us to be happy and share happiness wherever we go.
And this last assignment we were told to identify some of our communication conflict patterns or conflict Rituals. After we had to describe one of our conflict rituals that that had a positive influence on our relationship and one that had a negative influence on our influence.
Your Conflict Rituals
25/03/10
In my relationships I have experienced a lot of conflict rituals. I have noticed the patterns and process, but I never quite knew what they were and how to explain them. It’s funny to me because in my relationship with Jacqueline I think that we both know what our rituals are and we have adapted our personalities and attitudes to our conflict rituals so that we benefit from them instead of suffer.
When we first started out our relationship our communications was suffering. We would talk a lot, even up to 4-5 hours per day, but yet when it came to our first conflicts we started to set the conflict rituals for our fights. First, the main subject that would trigger a conflict was the topic of my ex-girlfriend and if I still had feelings for her. Second, the behavior that probably triggered the most conflict was my defensiveness and this probably sent her the wrong message that maybe I did still have feelings for my old relationship. Third, she would withdraw from me and become very quiet then I would become frustrated because I couldn’t communicate with her at all so I would remove myself from the situation and leave altogether causing us to both feel alone, angry and hurt for a lot longer than we needed. The ritual ended by usually both of us agreeing that it was too hard to fight and much easier to just let go of the subject, but it kept coming up and kept having a great negative effect on our relationship.
Luckily she was taking an interpersonal communications class and she recognized our conflict rituals and explained to me that we needed to change the way that we reacted to conflict in our relationship if we wanted to actually progress and not just try and forget about important topics that hurt us. So to fix our problems when a subject came up like my ex-girlfriend, or affection or other guys we wouldn’t withdraw from the situation, but take a step back think for a moment and why we were fighting and instead of becoming quiet she would address the problem and instead of me withdrawing from the situation I would end up holding her closer which was actually what she really needed and what I really needed in those moments. We would come to actual conclusions instead of just ignoring the subject for a short period of time. I’m so happy that we were able to get out of the negative conflict ritual and replace it with a more positive constructive one because since then we’ve been able to save ourselves a lot of grief and pain. My relationship has benefited greatly from finding positive conflict rituals with my soon to be wife Jacqueline Dustin.
I know you'll be reading this Jacqueline and i love you so much:)
This first one is a compliment assignment where we were asked to compliment 3 people and at least one of them had to be a complete stranger. It turned out to be a very interesting assignment so here is my writ up on it.
Compliment Assignment
19/01/10
This assignment was such a good experience for me. At first I thought it was going to be really awkward and difficult for me because to give a totally random stranger a compliment I thought would be one of the weirdest experiences of my entire life. But it didn’t turn out that way this weekend. I was able to compliment three people successfully without any awkward results I actually really liked the results that I received I actually ended up having an absolutely amazing weekend.
So after thinking praying about who I would like to compliment this weekend I just decided that it would be best if it were a legitimate compliment and not something that I had planned. I really wanted it to be something that came to my mind in the moment and not something that I just had to do for an assignment. So I prayed that Heavenly Father would do what he has always done just give me the opportunity to help others and just provide me with a chance to sincerely compliment people that I met and who I already knew.
I decided that I could compliment one of my mission friends, Jon Monson, who I had just recently come in contact with. He invited me over for some Brazilian food because we were both craving it so much and we had the chance to sit down and talk, catch up and just eat so much we felt like we were going to explode! I found myself wanting to let him know how great it was to know him and how wonderful he had made my mission experience I think he really appreciated that and we were able to have fun and strengthen a friendship that has been absent from my life for a while.
Now the stranger that I complimented was an older man as I was going to work. I was really stressed out with my wedding, guests, pictures, work and homework that I was just not having a very good day. But when I got out of my car there he was a friendly smiling old man with and expression that I could only describe it as the loving grandpa smile. He immediately asked me how I was doing and told me how wonderful it was to run into a friend like me. I just looked back at him and expressed my thanks to him that it was so refreshing to her a friendly voice that could relax me and make me feel much better. His name was Dave Watkins, he was the realtor for my building where I worked. We had a short conversation where I discovered that he knew a good majority of my family and recognized them as a wonderful, strong and upstanding family for who he had great respect. I felt so good and realized the great blessing I have in my life to be a part of my family and to represent such a well known name that is respected by many to be a good family. So as usual the Lord answered my prayers and gave me two chances to really give heartfelt compliments and not only to bless someone else’s life but to also have mine so richly blessed in the process too.
The last person I complimented was my fiancé, Jacqueline Dustin. This weekend I just looked at her and thought about how happy I was with her, I lucky I felt, how much I truly loved her and how excited I am to spend the rest of eternity with her. Then I just said it to her. We ended up having a long conversation of how we felt about each other and we even retraced our relationship in which I was just reminded of every reason I fell in love with her. Honestly, I loved her more and more each day and with this compliment and conversation that resulted from it I was so amazingly happy that this weekend just passed with me floating because of how happy I was to be with her. With every compliment I tried to give I was blessed by the Lord with so much more that I had given. This project totally made my weekend.
Another assignment that we had was to listen. We were instructed to work on our listening skills by better listening to someone that we wanted to improve our relationship with. It worked, I listened, realized my listening flaws and tried to fix them.
Me Listening
15/03/10
For this assignment we were instructed to choose a person that we would try to listen to better. We were told that it would help our relationship with this person. The person that I chose to listen to better was my fiancée Jacqueline Dustin. I figured this would be good for our relationship because lately the stress of the planning for the wedding, school, homework, health and work was really starting to weigh down on us and cause us some arguments that we really didn’t need at this moment. So our relationship was suffering from a lack of or misunderstanding of communication.
When I started this little listening project I realized that listening was actually really hard. I had previously thought that it would be easy because I am always with her and in my mind I was always listening to her. But it turned out to be a little tougher that it seemed. So I decided to try and recognize all of my listening problems that I may have for the first couple of days of the listening week and what I found out really caught me off guard in what I had been expecting. I caught myself trying to talk while she was speaking. I always wanted to interrupt her in the middle of her stories, or give my opinion in the middle of our discussions. I had a lot of problems with listening. I was constantly thinking about what I was going to say before she had even finished the sentence. I even noticed that when she was talking for a long period of time I would only remember the last part of the conversation because I wouldn’t really be listening until the very end of the conversation. I had so many listening problems! I couldn’t believe how many problems I had with listening. Especially listening to Jacqueline who I loved! I really couldn’t believe my ears. They just wouldn’t listen. I realized I had a big communication problem that I needed to fix. So I decided to really try to listen to Jacqueline and follow what Sister Embree’s had told us that if I listening intently and attentively that it would help my relationship.
So beginning more toward the middle of the week that I had chosen to really work on my listening skills and try to fix all of my problems that I had been noticing at the beginning of the week. This wasn’t going to be as easy as it had seemed in the beginning of the assignment. I began to listen more to Jacqueline, like really listen to her and not going to lie it was really hard. I had learned earlier in class attentively listening to a person and staying aware of the content in the conversation takes a lot of energy and effort from the listener. I began to improve my listening skills by first trying to minimize the number of times that I found myself wanting to interrupt her in the middle of her conversation. After I was able to do that I found out that the amount of time I spent planning my response or anticipating the flow of the conversation was affected as well because when I focused on her not interrupting her I was not thinking about my response I was actually listening to her. Then on top of that, even though I was very mentally exhausted by this I managed to begin to listen to the whole conversation. When I finally put all of these elements together I found out that I was not only in tune to what she was saying but also the emotion that was behind what she was saying. I think that I was much more open and responsive to her content messages and also more attentive to the relational messages that she was sending as well. I felt that I could understand her needs more and more as time went on and I was really trying to fulfill her needs when I would hear and recognize them.
In conclustion I felt that Sister Embree was right, that effective listening actually helped me to improve my relationship with Jacqueline. I intend to try and continue to listen attentively to her throughout our relationship and marriage. I may not be able to be attentive all the time but I think it is like praying or learning how to play a new sport. That the more that you practice and work at it the better and more natural the action becomes so I think that I can really increase the time that I can effectively listen to her and be attentive in the conversation. So I guess you can say that I have a new lifetime goal to add to my new list and not only will I do this with Jacqueline but I think that if I can better my listening skills I can apply them to school, work, future kids and all parts of my life.
This next assignment was a response to a very touching story that we read for class.
Response to: “A True Story” by Paul Villard
Response to “A True Story”
23/03/10
Here is a perfect little story about two people who needed each other, but never knew the true extent of their actions for a long time. First, a young boy whose childlike innocence and need for attention drew him to his family phone to talk to the operator who he named “Information Please”. After the first encounter with “Information please” he went back to ask information about everything. Feeding a pet chipmunk, studying arithmetic, planning adventures to distant places and even comforting him when a family pet died. This little boy grew up with this clear, tender voice giving him all the information he needed fulfilling his needs when he needed someone to just listen to him and council him when he was in need. Eventually the boy moved to another part of the country leaving his best friend behind that he only knew as “Information please”.
Years later this young boy had grown to a man attending college and yet still reminiscing about his old friend the operator. He was grateful for her patience in always listening to him and helping him find the information that he needed. Then when he was passing through the part of the country that he had grown up talking to the operator he decided to call and see if his childhood friend and mentor were still there. When called and asked for “Information Please” he heard the same clear and kind voice that he had talked to all those years ago. It turns out “Information Please” had a name, Sally, and she was just as excited to talk to the once young boy who had unknowingly made her life better. Sally didn’t have any children and always looked forward to him calling so that she could somehow give council to a child that she didn’t have. They both didn’t realize the extent of their actions all those years ago. He would have grown up all the same and she would have continued to be an operator and yet their presence in each other’s lives had such an impact that once older friends became reacquainted very quickly forming a new friendship. Then one day the boy called his old friend only to hear that she had passed away weeks earlier. But she had left a message she had once given to him before when his pet canary had died, she told him, “Paul, there are other worlds to sing in.”
This story for some strange reason had a very great impact on me. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I just felt happy for Paul and Sally that they both had each other when they needed someone. It may seem all coincidence or by chance that good fortune comes across us and/or others. That luck just happens to play its part in giving us needs that we have and that the game of chance favors us in the exact moment we are unconsciously looking for something or someone. But in this case, to me it was something very different, something that wasn’t just by chance or coincidence, but something that was influenced by some divine plan. We have a God, a Heavenly Father so to speak that is our ultimate mentor and comforter because we are his children. He knows us so well that he gives us gifts like this operator or like a little boy calling you every day that in the moment may seem so simple that we don’t realize their impact until later in our lives. It comforts me to know that He is watching over us and He knows exactly what we need when we need it and it is by his divine plan for us to be happy and He will help us anyway that he can. You may ask why then do bad things happen? Well, we all make our own decisions and sometimes bad things happen because others choose so and in turn it has a negative influence on our lives. But bad things happen to help us learn and grow and even direct us. The reason this little boy went to talk to the operator was because he had hit his finger with a hammer and needed someone to talk to, someone to comfort him because no one else was home. So what did he do? He called the operator and consequently began a friendship that was more than beneficial to the two of them. So when we act in our lives and things happen, good things or bad things, how do we react? How do we take these little moments seem like nothing and yet could shape our personality in who we are and who we will become? I like to think that I would always be aware of these moments but I know I can’t be, the best I can do is to be observant, listen to others, help them in service, and be a positive influence in this divine plan. This was a wonderful little story that I enjoyed greatly. Its stories like these that give us happiness to know and remind us to be happy and share happiness wherever we go.
And this last assignment we were told to identify some of our communication conflict patterns or conflict Rituals. After we had to describe one of our conflict rituals that that had a positive influence on our relationship and one that had a negative influence on our influence.
Your Conflict Rituals
25/03/10
In my relationships I have experienced a lot of conflict rituals. I have noticed the patterns and process, but I never quite knew what they were and how to explain them. It’s funny to me because in my relationship with Jacqueline I think that we both know what our rituals are and we have adapted our personalities and attitudes to our conflict rituals so that we benefit from them instead of suffer.
When we first started out our relationship our communications was suffering. We would talk a lot, even up to 4-5 hours per day, but yet when it came to our first conflicts we started to set the conflict rituals for our fights. First, the main subject that would trigger a conflict was the topic of my ex-girlfriend and if I still had feelings for her. Second, the behavior that probably triggered the most conflict was my defensiveness and this probably sent her the wrong message that maybe I did still have feelings for my old relationship. Third, she would withdraw from me and become very quiet then I would become frustrated because I couldn’t communicate with her at all so I would remove myself from the situation and leave altogether causing us to both feel alone, angry and hurt for a lot longer than we needed. The ritual ended by usually both of us agreeing that it was too hard to fight and much easier to just let go of the subject, but it kept coming up and kept having a great negative effect on our relationship.
Luckily she was taking an interpersonal communications class and she recognized our conflict rituals and explained to me that we needed to change the way that we reacted to conflict in our relationship if we wanted to actually progress and not just try and forget about important topics that hurt us. So to fix our problems when a subject came up like my ex-girlfriend, or affection or other guys we wouldn’t withdraw from the situation, but take a step back think for a moment and why we were fighting and instead of becoming quiet she would address the problem and instead of me withdrawing from the situation I would end up holding her closer which was actually what she really needed and what I really needed in those moments. We would come to actual conclusions instead of just ignoring the subject for a short period of time. I’m so happy that we were able to get out of the negative conflict ritual and replace it with a more positive constructive one because since then we’ve been able to save ourselves a lot of grief and pain. My relationship has benefited greatly from finding positive conflict rituals with my soon to be wife Jacqueline Dustin.
I know you'll be reading this Jacqueline and i love you so much:)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Up until now....
So up until now the class has read and discussed some talks that reflect the material that we are learning and using in our lives. I have read each talk and written a response to each.
Response to:"The Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words"
M. CATHERINE THOMAS
Communications
19/01/10
The Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words
This talk given by M. Catherine Thomas was one of the most interesting talks that I have recently read. I really enjoyed it because it made me think and realize how much our society today really focuses on the importance of good self-esteem.
I think that this is really interesting the way that Sister Thomas explained how self-esteem really isn’t that important. Her view and talk is so much different from our culture today because we are taught to believe in yourself, know you can do anything you put your mind to and to trust in yourself. But her approach is that we are nothing that really all we need is our Father in heaven and that is so amazingly true! I loved it! From this view our self worth means much more to us if we are able to effectively apply it in our lives. For instance in the world today we are meant to try and have a good self-esteem. But how do we accomplish that? Usually we are successful in completing our goals or achieving our desires, or we are good at an activity or sport. But also we rely far too much on the outside environment and lean on that outside stuff to build and maintain our self esteem. Like Sister Thomas explains the road to developing and having a good self-esteem becomes a source of stress and anxiety to us. As we slip and mess up and disappoint ourselves we become less and less confident and our self-esteem suffers. With the idea of self-esteem it is far too easy to become depressed or lose our faith in ourselves and be let down and suffer. But Sister Thomas shows us the solution to the problems that self-esteem causes, just like the answer to so many other questions that we have in our lives, our Savior Jesus Christ and his teachings in the scriptures.
I love the alternative Sister Thomas gave to self-esteem, and not only that, but it makes complete sense to me. We must go back and remember the lesson that has been taught to us many times, the plan of Salvation. From the plan of salvation we can go back and remember that we came from our Heavenly Father’s presence. That we were sent here to live on this earth and learn how to live by faith in our Savior, trusting in Him in all things that we do. We need to realize how small we really are and how powerless we are to save ourselves. It is our Heavenly Father that gives us all things and if we humble ourselves we will continually grow and progress in our spirituality and as we do this the stress of progressing in our self-esteem will seem less and less important.
Personally I think that this is a wonderful talk and I wish that I had this talk when I was younger. It would have saved me from pursuing some things that may have been more to promote my self esteem that to grow closer my Lord. Sister Thomas uses many wonderful references to support her talk. They show that we cannot really accomplish anything without the help of our God. That we must boast in the strength of God than boast in our own strength, like Ammon had done when he showed that self esteem didn’t mean as much to him as the love of God. Another part of Sister Thomas’s address that I really liked was the point made that possible doors or other opportunities were not shut because we were unskilled, incompetent or just under qualified, but because Heavenly Father was just guiding us. In my life there have been moments I’ve wondered what I was doing, where I was going, what direction I should go and I just felt I needed direction and well when things didn’t work out I always just trusted in the Lord and took it that there was a reason the Lord didn’t want me to do that and having that mindset I never really got discouraged I just went along with it and so far its worked out great for me. But for the future I really just want to be a disciple of Christ. That throughout each and every day I would continually strive to make myself more humble and remember what He has done for me. I am really going to try and apply this talk in my life because I agree completely that it is more important to have the Love of God in our lives and realize we are nothing and humble ourselves to His will and allow Him to guide us in our trials than to have a great self-esteem and be puffed up in my own pride into believing that I can actually do anything. I know that that I am nothing that I need my Heavenly Father in my life and I know that I have and can feel the Love of God in my life
Response to: The Great Measure of Discipleship
Kenneth L. Southwick
Communications 150
Sister Embree
01/02/10
The Great Measure of Our Discipleship
When Brother Southwick asked, “what is the great measure of my discipleship?” I really didn’t know how to answer that. I thought maybe something to the extent of how I obey the commandments or ask close as how I treat other. But I didn’t think that my great measure of my discipleship was how I viewed other. I really liked this talk because it explained the importance of how we treat and act with others based upon how we view them. This talk explains the way that we are suppose to treat others and how we are supposed to view others as daughters and sons of Heavenly Father. I think this is so important because Brother Southwick was right when he said that not all people are aware that they even judge others or treat them differently. But the real scary part is that it happens a lot and we don’t know what the effect is on a person in need. Like the story of the young lady was a great example of what happens when we don’t take into consideration the feelings of others how such a seemingly small action can influence a life so greatly. The young man had no idea how his actions had made her feel. Like some of us we are oblivious to the feelings of others when we act.
This story reminds me of my Jr. high/ early high school experience. I had always had my click of friends. I did everything with them, I want to school with them, I went to church with them, I participated in scouting, went camping, and everything with this group of friends, until I reached the 9th grade. For some reason their views for me changed. Instead of being their friend I became the one to make fun of because I was different. For some reason they were only able to focus on that part of me and the worst part was they didn’t see how I felt every time they said something about me, they didn’t understand or take into consideration how I felt. Eventually I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t want to go hang out anymore, going to school was a constant dread and I walked out of church several times due to their remarks. I was miserable and really I felt like I had no friends. I thought why did everything change this year? Why was I so different than the years before? I couldn’t understand and I hurt more than I ever have in my entire life. I felt completely alone, abandoned by those who I looked up to, by those I loved and by those who I thought cared about me. Unfortunately it became a very big problem for me and I received so much harassment that I returned home crying what seemed like every day. I had lost sight that I was a child of God and my thoughts became rash looking for any escape they even came to thoughts of running away or suicide. Thankfully one of my childhood friends that I had not talked to in about a year came and talked to me sensing something to be wrong. I told her everything and that act of her just asking what’s the matter was the biggest and most important question to me in jr. high. It helped me to realize I wasn’t totally alone and slowly after that turning point I was able to find new friends, better friends, friends that looked at me like a person and treated me with respect. I will never forget this experience my entire life and so for me this story had a lot of meaning and I could feel a lot of empathy for this young woman. I am happy to say that I have become more comfortable with my heritage and ethnicity and I am ok with remarks that back then would have hurt me. But now the difference is that my friends can joke with me about my race, but my true friends know where to draw the line how to respect me. I myself had promised myself that I would never judge someone negatively and I would always try to see the good in them. Some have called this my weakness but I consider this one of my greatest strengths, to be able to look at someone and love them, to see their potential as a son or daughter of God and to treat them as such. I feel that if I judge others and do not view them as the valuable person they are then I am no better than my used to be friends. I would be a hypocrite and if I judge others then I deserve to be judged. I have tried to be more conscious of the feelings of those around me. I want to help those who feel as if they have nothing and help them see they are loved. That there is happiness and hope. I want to help others see themselves and everyone else as sons and daughters of our Loving Heavenly Father. I don’t want anyone to feel like I did back then I want them to feel like I do now and not only feel but I want to influence the good in others I want others to meet me and want to be a better person and I want them to be happy. This talk was amazing and I loved it. It showed the importance of knowing how we view others and how we treat them and be conscious of that. We can’t always be aware of everything that is going on around us but we should try to be open to those in need. Like our Savior’s example we need to see them for who they are and to show others we love them and ask “what can I do for you?” (Mark 10)
Response to:"And Nothing Shall Offend Them" - David A Bednar
Communications 150
Sister Embree
10/02/10
And Nothing Shall Offend Them
Elder Bednar is such an amazing speaker. He is always so clear and his council is unmistakable. The topic of his talk was to not take offense to possibly offending situations or actions from others. While I was reading this talk I was thinking about a quote that I heard. I can’t remember who said it but they said, “No one can make you inferior without your consent.” Meaning that really no one can make you become angry no one can make you mad without your permission.
On my mission I had the opportunity to meet many amazing people. One of these was a recent convert to the church. He and his wife had just been baptized before I arrived in the area and immediately when I had arrived they were feeding me and inviting me in and being so friendly. Over a number of weeks I became good friends with this family they were going to church reading their scriptures and progressing so quickly it was amazing to look at where they had come to where they were in their spirituality. But all of their progress was almost destroyed by a ward activity that we had. During this ward activity we had several coupons that were handed out at the door for food drinks and games. We would trade these coupons for these items to make sure that there was enough food that everyone had enough to eat. During this activity my recent convert friends came in received their coupons and proceeded to wait in the long line to trade the coupon for food. Well somewhere along the way my friend, he lost his ticket on the ground or misplaced it. When he finally reached the food he told the sister what had happened she told him that she wouldn’t give him his food until he had his coupon, when obviously she had enough food and she personally knew him and called him a friend. He tried to explain to her that he was hungry and he would be happy to get other coupon if he could get some food at that time and come back later. Unfortunately the sister pushed him aside and called for the next person with a coupon. My friend became very upset and decided that he would never participate in another activity again. It took me and my companion several weeks of visiting this man daily to help him to come back. But long story short we ended up teaching him this exact same principle. That his refusal to go to church and activities was hurting him spiritually. He was a very understanding man and he thought about it several days but in the end he chose to not be offended by the actions of this sister and come back. Eventually they became friends again and forgave each other and my friend continued to grow and progress in the church.
Elder Bednar’s address to the members not to be offended was perfect because no matter how hard we try someone is going to offend us. But I liked his note of, perfecting the saints. We are all growing and all learning together and eventually we are going to accidentally offend someone or be offended and we can accept to be angry or invite the atonement in our lives and feel its power and forgive before a problem occurs. Also, just as important is how we talk to the person after wards. We must talk to them privately and nicely. This way I feel that contention can be totally be avoided and that members can greatly progress in their lives and spirituality. I know that I am not the best when it comes to not being offended by others. But I will defiantly take Elder Bednar’s council and not be offended. I have already lost some of the blessing I could have had because of this problem in my life and I won’t allow it to affect me again. Also I will try and help others realized the importance of not becoming offended and to forget the past and receive blessings in their lives. Forgiveness is a very powerful healing tool in our lives and in our spirituality. The hardest part is actually letting go and forgiving those who have wronged you but once we have done that we are able to feel the love of the Savior in our lives and continue to use that momentum to push us to continue to not be offended and help others. That is another thing that I feel was of great importance in Elder Bednar’s talk was to help others. Reach out to them and remind them of the lost blessings and the possible blessings that could come into their lives if they chose to come back and participate in the ordinances of the gospel. The most important thing is to help them feel the power of the Holy Ghost in their lives again to help them to remember that the church is true and that they shouldn’t give up blessings to bitterness and hate but realize that feeling and having the Holy Ghost and its guidance in our lives is much more important than past grudges. Like Elder Bednar said some of them do not see it that way and if we can reach out and help them understand then we should.
Response to:"The Tongue of Angels" - Jeffrey R Holland
Communications 150
Sister Embree
17/02/10
The Tongues of Angels Response
This talk by Elder Holland was exactly what I needed this weekend. I was having a little bit of a rough time and I really didn’t know what to do or really what to say. It is true that the tongue has a lot of power and has to be restrained sometimes but on the other hand the opposite is true. Many miracles and amazing moments throughout the scriptures have taken place from the words that the prophets have prophesied.
In this talk I thought was great when Elder Holland talked about the relationships between a husband and wife and how they should be communicating with one another. W e need to strive to be more perfect men and women in our lives. This weekend was an interesting experience for me because I learned something about myself. I learned that the language that my fiancé uses affects me a lot more than I would like. When I’m with someone that I love and respect I feel completely safe with them and I am very vulnerable when this happens. So this weekend there were a lot of factors that played into the situation but I was told some very harsh and unfair things and I felt the most hurt that I have ever felt during the relationship. Her words had such an effect on me that I wasn’t expecting it really caught me off guard and knocked me down. Even when she apologized I still couldn’t help but dwell on what had been said. I could not get it out of my head and I felt so hurt over and over again I thought about ending the relationship. I mean my whole perspective of the relationship was changed because of a few things that were said to me. The language that we use in our relationship affects the way we communicate greatly. Thankfully we resolved the problem, but it took us hours to begin to talk and act the same way with each other. But thankfully the problems were resolved and everything is back to normal between us. Another thing about the relationships between the husband and wife that stuck out to me was the chilling fact that there are those husbands that would never strike their wives but they hurt them emotionally and verbally is something that they would do without really realizing it. But it Elder Holland gives advice to them as well that isn’t like the men’s but takes a different approach of how the sisters voices are like angels and why they would foul that up with backbiting and gossip. I learned this week that it is so important to hold back when I’m in a dispute and think about what I want to say because it absolutely ruined my weekend when we began to fight. I need to take Elder Holland’s advice to step back and think about what my actions and words will do for my relationship.
I loved how Elder Holland compared the tongue to a fire. That it is such a small part of the body but really it can cause an amazing about of damage. The tongue is just a fire ready to rage out of control if we don’t keep it in check and choose our words wisely.
Another thing that I thought about was the comment that someone that talks to others negatively really has a pessimistic outlook on their life and ultimately treats others with disrespect because of their unhappiness. This kind of ties in with the whole idea of buckets and dippers when someone is feeling empty they will steal from others to try and lift themselves up and empty others. But the opposite must be true as well, if we are happy and have a positive attitude about life then you tend to treat others better and communicate better with others.
Elder Holland in the end of his talk gives us some advice to help us in our lives to better us our language with others. When we strive to perfect ourselves we can become more and more like our Savior and speak with the tongues of angels. Our words reflect our deeds and our lives. So when we act in the church we are counseled to act in faith, hope, charity and love. We also need to be able to act in these elements in the way we speak as well so that we may have the Holy Ghost to be with us to lead and protect us in all we do and in our words to guide us in what we say. So after this talk I think that I will be better prepared for the next time that I have a dispute with my wife. I need to use all the skills and tips that I have learned in this class to see her as a the daughter of God, to understand her and interpret her actions and to be guided by the spirit in what I do and say to her…my words I learned this weekend are just as important as my deeds. I can do better than I am. I will do better.
These are the talks and here are my thoughts. I hope you like them! I'm also going to post a blog with our class discussions and other assignments that we have been given soon!
Response to:"The Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words"
M. CATHERINE THOMAS
Communications
19/01/10
The Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words
This talk given by M. Catherine Thomas was one of the most interesting talks that I have recently read. I really enjoyed it because it made me think and realize how much our society today really focuses on the importance of good self-esteem.
I think that this is really interesting the way that Sister Thomas explained how self-esteem really isn’t that important. Her view and talk is so much different from our culture today because we are taught to believe in yourself, know you can do anything you put your mind to and to trust in yourself. But her approach is that we are nothing that really all we need is our Father in heaven and that is so amazingly true! I loved it! From this view our self worth means much more to us if we are able to effectively apply it in our lives. For instance in the world today we are meant to try and have a good self-esteem. But how do we accomplish that? Usually we are successful in completing our goals or achieving our desires, or we are good at an activity or sport. But also we rely far too much on the outside environment and lean on that outside stuff to build and maintain our self esteem. Like Sister Thomas explains the road to developing and having a good self-esteem becomes a source of stress and anxiety to us. As we slip and mess up and disappoint ourselves we become less and less confident and our self-esteem suffers. With the idea of self-esteem it is far too easy to become depressed or lose our faith in ourselves and be let down and suffer. But Sister Thomas shows us the solution to the problems that self-esteem causes, just like the answer to so many other questions that we have in our lives, our Savior Jesus Christ and his teachings in the scriptures.
I love the alternative Sister Thomas gave to self-esteem, and not only that, but it makes complete sense to me. We must go back and remember the lesson that has been taught to us many times, the plan of Salvation. From the plan of salvation we can go back and remember that we came from our Heavenly Father’s presence. That we were sent here to live on this earth and learn how to live by faith in our Savior, trusting in Him in all things that we do. We need to realize how small we really are and how powerless we are to save ourselves. It is our Heavenly Father that gives us all things and if we humble ourselves we will continually grow and progress in our spirituality and as we do this the stress of progressing in our self-esteem will seem less and less important.
Personally I think that this is a wonderful talk and I wish that I had this talk when I was younger. It would have saved me from pursuing some things that may have been more to promote my self esteem that to grow closer my Lord. Sister Thomas uses many wonderful references to support her talk. They show that we cannot really accomplish anything without the help of our God. That we must boast in the strength of God than boast in our own strength, like Ammon had done when he showed that self esteem didn’t mean as much to him as the love of God. Another part of Sister Thomas’s address that I really liked was the point made that possible doors or other opportunities were not shut because we were unskilled, incompetent or just under qualified, but because Heavenly Father was just guiding us. In my life there have been moments I’ve wondered what I was doing, where I was going, what direction I should go and I just felt I needed direction and well when things didn’t work out I always just trusted in the Lord and took it that there was a reason the Lord didn’t want me to do that and having that mindset I never really got discouraged I just went along with it and so far its worked out great for me. But for the future I really just want to be a disciple of Christ. That throughout each and every day I would continually strive to make myself more humble and remember what He has done for me. I am really going to try and apply this talk in my life because I agree completely that it is more important to have the Love of God in our lives and realize we are nothing and humble ourselves to His will and allow Him to guide us in our trials than to have a great self-esteem and be puffed up in my own pride into believing that I can actually do anything. I know that that I am nothing that I need my Heavenly Father in my life and I know that I have and can feel the Love of God in my life
Response to: The Great Measure of Discipleship
Kenneth L. Southwick
Communications 150
Sister Embree
01/02/10
The Great Measure of Our Discipleship
When Brother Southwick asked, “what is the great measure of my discipleship?” I really didn’t know how to answer that. I thought maybe something to the extent of how I obey the commandments or ask close as how I treat other. But I didn’t think that my great measure of my discipleship was how I viewed other. I really liked this talk because it explained the importance of how we treat and act with others based upon how we view them. This talk explains the way that we are suppose to treat others and how we are supposed to view others as daughters and sons of Heavenly Father. I think this is so important because Brother Southwick was right when he said that not all people are aware that they even judge others or treat them differently. But the real scary part is that it happens a lot and we don’t know what the effect is on a person in need. Like the story of the young lady was a great example of what happens when we don’t take into consideration the feelings of others how such a seemingly small action can influence a life so greatly. The young man had no idea how his actions had made her feel. Like some of us we are oblivious to the feelings of others when we act.
This story reminds me of my Jr. high/ early high school experience. I had always had my click of friends. I did everything with them, I want to school with them, I went to church with them, I participated in scouting, went camping, and everything with this group of friends, until I reached the 9th grade. For some reason their views for me changed. Instead of being their friend I became the one to make fun of because I was different. For some reason they were only able to focus on that part of me and the worst part was they didn’t see how I felt every time they said something about me, they didn’t understand or take into consideration how I felt. Eventually I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t want to go hang out anymore, going to school was a constant dread and I walked out of church several times due to their remarks. I was miserable and really I felt like I had no friends. I thought why did everything change this year? Why was I so different than the years before? I couldn’t understand and I hurt more than I ever have in my entire life. I felt completely alone, abandoned by those who I looked up to, by those I loved and by those who I thought cared about me. Unfortunately it became a very big problem for me and I received so much harassment that I returned home crying what seemed like every day. I had lost sight that I was a child of God and my thoughts became rash looking for any escape they even came to thoughts of running away or suicide. Thankfully one of my childhood friends that I had not talked to in about a year came and talked to me sensing something to be wrong. I told her everything and that act of her just asking what’s the matter was the biggest and most important question to me in jr. high. It helped me to realize I wasn’t totally alone and slowly after that turning point I was able to find new friends, better friends, friends that looked at me like a person and treated me with respect. I will never forget this experience my entire life and so for me this story had a lot of meaning and I could feel a lot of empathy for this young woman. I am happy to say that I have become more comfortable with my heritage and ethnicity and I am ok with remarks that back then would have hurt me. But now the difference is that my friends can joke with me about my race, but my true friends know where to draw the line how to respect me. I myself had promised myself that I would never judge someone negatively and I would always try to see the good in them. Some have called this my weakness but I consider this one of my greatest strengths, to be able to look at someone and love them, to see their potential as a son or daughter of God and to treat them as such. I feel that if I judge others and do not view them as the valuable person they are then I am no better than my used to be friends. I would be a hypocrite and if I judge others then I deserve to be judged. I have tried to be more conscious of the feelings of those around me. I want to help those who feel as if they have nothing and help them see they are loved. That there is happiness and hope. I want to help others see themselves and everyone else as sons and daughters of our Loving Heavenly Father. I don’t want anyone to feel like I did back then I want them to feel like I do now and not only feel but I want to influence the good in others I want others to meet me and want to be a better person and I want them to be happy. This talk was amazing and I loved it. It showed the importance of knowing how we view others and how we treat them and be conscious of that. We can’t always be aware of everything that is going on around us but we should try to be open to those in need. Like our Savior’s example we need to see them for who they are and to show others we love them and ask “what can I do for you?” (Mark 10)
Response to:"And Nothing Shall Offend Them" - David A Bednar
Communications 150
Sister Embree
10/02/10
And Nothing Shall Offend Them
Elder Bednar is such an amazing speaker. He is always so clear and his council is unmistakable. The topic of his talk was to not take offense to possibly offending situations or actions from others. While I was reading this talk I was thinking about a quote that I heard. I can’t remember who said it but they said, “No one can make you inferior without your consent.” Meaning that really no one can make you become angry no one can make you mad without your permission.
On my mission I had the opportunity to meet many amazing people. One of these was a recent convert to the church. He and his wife had just been baptized before I arrived in the area and immediately when I had arrived they were feeding me and inviting me in and being so friendly. Over a number of weeks I became good friends with this family they were going to church reading their scriptures and progressing so quickly it was amazing to look at where they had come to where they were in their spirituality. But all of their progress was almost destroyed by a ward activity that we had. During this ward activity we had several coupons that were handed out at the door for food drinks and games. We would trade these coupons for these items to make sure that there was enough food that everyone had enough to eat. During this activity my recent convert friends came in received their coupons and proceeded to wait in the long line to trade the coupon for food. Well somewhere along the way my friend, he lost his ticket on the ground or misplaced it. When he finally reached the food he told the sister what had happened she told him that she wouldn’t give him his food until he had his coupon, when obviously she had enough food and she personally knew him and called him a friend. He tried to explain to her that he was hungry and he would be happy to get other coupon if he could get some food at that time and come back later. Unfortunately the sister pushed him aside and called for the next person with a coupon. My friend became very upset and decided that he would never participate in another activity again. It took me and my companion several weeks of visiting this man daily to help him to come back. But long story short we ended up teaching him this exact same principle. That his refusal to go to church and activities was hurting him spiritually. He was a very understanding man and he thought about it several days but in the end he chose to not be offended by the actions of this sister and come back. Eventually they became friends again and forgave each other and my friend continued to grow and progress in the church.
Elder Bednar’s address to the members not to be offended was perfect because no matter how hard we try someone is going to offend us. But I liked his note of, perfecting the saints. We are all growing and all learning together and eventually we are going to accidentally offend someone or be offended and we can accept to be angry or invite the atonement in our lives and feel its power and forgive before a problem occurs. Also, just as important is how we talk to the person after wards. We must talk to them privately and nicely. This way I feel that contention can be totally be avoided and that members can greatly progress in their lives and spirituality. I know that I am not the best when it comes to not being offended by others. But I will defiantly take Elder Bednar’s council and not be offended. I have already lost some of the blessing I could have had because of this problem in my life and I won’t allow it to affect me again. Also I will try and help others realized the importance of not becoming offended and to forget the past and receive blessings in their lives. Forgiveness is a very powerful healing tool in our lives and in our spirituality. The hardest part is actually letting go and forgiving those who have wronged you but once we have done that we are able to feel the love of the Savior in our lives and continue to use that momentum to push us to continue to not be offended and help others. That is another thing that I feel was of great importance in Elder Bednar’s talk was to help others. Reach out to them and remind them of the lost blessings and the possible blessings that could come into their lives if they chose to come back and participate in the ordinances of the gospel. The most important thing is to help them feel the power of the Holy Ghost in their lives again to help them to remember that the church is true and that they shouldn’t give up blessings to bitterness and hate but realize that feeling and having the Holy Ghost and its guidance in our lives is much more important than past grudges. Like Elder Bednar said some of them do not see it that way and if we can reach out and help them understand then we should.
Response to:"The Tongue of Angels" - Jeffrey R Holland
Communications 150
Sister Embree
17/02/10
The Tongues of Angels Response
This talk by Elder Holland was exactly what I needed this weekend. I was having a little bit of a rough time and I really didn’t know what to do or really what to say. It is true that the tongue has a lot of power and has to be restrained sometimes but on the other hand the opposite is true. Many miracles and amazing moments throughout the scriptures have taken place from the words that the prophets have prophesied.
In this talk I thought was great when Elder Holland talked about the relationships between a husband and wife and how they should be communicating with one another. W e need to strive to be more perfect men and women in our lives. This weekend was an interesting experience for me because I learned something about myself. I learned that the language that my fiancé uses affects me a lot more than I would like. When I’m with someone that I love and respect I feel completely safe with them and I am very vulnerable when this happens. So this weekend there were a lot of factors that played into the situation but I was told some very harsh and unfair things and I felt the most hurt that I have ever felt during the relationship. Her words had such an effect on me that I wasn’t expecting it really caught me off guard and knocked me down. Even when she apologized I still couldn’t help but dwell on what had been said. I could not get it out of my head and I felt so hurt over and over again I thought about ending the relationship. I mean my whole perspective of the relationship was changed because of a few things that were said to me. The language that we use in our relationship affects the way we communicate greatly. Thankfully we resolved the problem, but it took us hours to begin to talk and act the same way with each other. But thankfully the problems were resolved and everything is back to normal between us. Another thing about the relationships between the husband and wife that stuck out to me was the chilling fact that there are those husbands that would never strike their wives but they hurt them emotionally and verbally is something that they would do without really realizing it. But it Elder Holland gives advice to them as well that isn’t like the men’s but takes a different approach of how the sisters voices are like angels and why they would foul that up with backbiting and gossip. I learned this week that it is so important to hold back when I’m in a dispute and think about what I want to say because it absolutely ruined my weekend when we began to fight. I need to take Elder Holland’s advice to step back and think about what my actions and words will do for my relationship.
I loved how Elder Holland compared the tongue to a fire. That it is such a small part of the body but really it can cause an amazing about of damage. The tongue is just a fire ready to rage out of control if we don’t keep it in check and choose our words wisely.
Another thing that I thought about was the comment that someone that talks to others negatively really has a pessimistic outlook on their life and ultimately treats others with disrespect because of their unhappiness. This kind of ties in with the whole idea of buckets and dippers when someone is feeling empty they will steal from others to try and lift themselves up and empty others. But the opposite must be true as well, if we are happy and have a positive attitude about life then you tend to treat others better and communicate better with others.
Elder Holland in the end of his talk gives us some advice to help us in our lives to better us our language with others. When we strive to perfect ourselves we can become more and more like our Savior and speak with the tongues of angels. Our words reflect our deeds and our lives. So when we act in the church we are counseled to act in faith, hope, charity and love. We also need to be able to act in these elements in the way we speak as well so that we may have the Holy Ghost to be with us to lead and protect us in all we do and in our words to guide us in what we say. So after this talk I think that I will be better prepared for the next time that I have a dispute with my wife. I need to use all the skills and tips that I have learned in this class to see her as a the daughter of God, to understand her and interpret her actions and to be guided by the spirit in what I do and say to her…my words I learned this weekend are just as important as my deeds. I can do better than I am. I will do better.
These are the talks and here are my thoughts. I hope you like them! I'm also going to post a blog with our class discussions and other assignments that we have been given soon!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Jacqueline :)
P.S. Jacqueline, I know you're going to read this and you're probably one of the only ones...so I just want to tell you I love You:)
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