Hello people!

This week our topic is preparing for marriage and different types of love.
We'll start off with a new word that I learned, "propinquity."
Propinquity refers to "nearness in place." It also refers to the people around us whom are also similar to us. This is the first of a couple different filters that we use to narrow the amount of people we'll date and eventually marry. The chance that you'll marry someone you've never met are slim to none. The second filter we often have is attractiveness. This refers to our "visual appeal." However, we may not be attracted to people just by their physical appearance. You can be attracted to someone by their smell, their personality, intelligence/education and even their talents. There may be more filters, but the last one we discussed was knowing. Our professor gave us a little formula to follow on how well you know someone. The 3 T's are:

 Togetherness(shared activities/dating)
 Talk(mutual self-disclosure)
+Time   
Know-Quo

Here are 5 suggestions to assist in establishing and strengthening a celestial marriage as told by Bruce A. Chadwick

1. All the Cinderella's and Prince Charming's need to throw away their glass slippers. The Lord's plan is to find a right one rather than the one. There are actually many whose feet will fit nicely within the glass slipper.
2. Don't wait for Heavenly Father to write the name of the person you are to marry on your kitchen wall. Be proactive, seek someone like you, who is worthy, and inspires you to be better.
3. Exercise faith and have courage in dating and marriage.
4. Keep physical intimacy at an appropriate level as to enjoy the presence of the Spirit and to be worthy to seal commitment to each other in the temple. 
5. Pray for them!

"Good marriage is crafted, not found."

• The first column is “Know” – bonding with someone and getting to know them.
• The next column is “Trust” – as you get to know someone, you put together your pieces of knowledge to make a dynamic picture of that person, and the more you know, the better you can begin to trust. The “knowing” comes first, and from that, trust develops.
• The third bonding dynamic is entitled “Rely” – this refers to the action that follows from trust. Reliance grows from the ways you meet another person’s needs as well as how they meet your needs.
• The fourth column is “Commit” – the definition of ownership or belonging in a relationship. The extent to which you feel like you belong to someone, and that they belong to you, is a measure of the degree of commitment in your relationship.
• And the last dynamic is “Sexual Touch” – a strong contributor to the feelings of intimacy and closeness in any romantic relationship.

Now we'll move on to the 4 types of love:

• Agape- "Charity." Caring for someone else's well-being without commitment; non-romantic
• Eros- Passionate, sexual, romantic
• Storge- similar to a parent loving their child 
• Philia- affection, friendship, "brotherly love" 

I'm learning so much in this class and hope that reader's are getting something out of it. Dating is a super important part of life and it's essential to lead to marriage. Date lots of people and have fun! Get to know what you like in a person and what you don't. And don't forget to involve God in all of your relationships. With constant prayer, he won't lead you astray. He wants us to be happy and for us to find our eternal companion and he'll help if we just ask. 

Thanks for reading,

Happy early Valentine's Day ;)

And Happy early birthday to Shirley!

- Karly B.