Friday, October 24, 2008

YW Manual 3 Lesson #35 Dating Decisions

This is one of those lessons that, as a young woman, you look forward to every year.  One thing that I didn't do with this lesson that my YW leaders seemed to always have us do is make a list of all the qualities that you want in a husband.  I did that many times as a young woman, and while I still have some of those lists, my husband does not fill all the requirements, BUT he does have many other qualities that weren't listed.  So...  I modified that general idea by telling the girls that they should base their lists on the scriptures.  I do have a list in the back of my scriptures entitled "The Man I Want to Marry."  Under this title are a list of scriptures which include good qualities for a husband and father.  This is a much more realistic and righteous list than those that I made when I was younger.  And after a little while, I realized that many of these qualities I was listing for my husband were things that I needed to work on.  So, I started another list entitled "The Woman I Want to Be."  This exercise was the most fulfilling of it's kind that I had ever done, so I made bookmarks for the girls with these titles on either side and a series of lines for them to fill in different scriptures as they study their scriptures through the years.  I told them to make a scriptural list of qualities they wanted in a husband.  But told them that they needed to be a certain type of girl so that they would be able to attract that type of boy.  I solidified that with an experience of my own:

While my husband was on his mission (obviously this was before we were married) I wrote to him.  Now, you need to understand that we did not date before his mission, I was writing to him as friends.  In one of my letters, I asked him was made him decide to serve a mission.  He was the only member of the Church in his family and didn't have great support for his mission (if any at all).  He told me a few different reasons and finished with this: "And besides, what Charmaine [insert my maiden name] would marry a boy who didn't serve a mission?"  I was of course honored and encouraged my girls to also be the type of girl who would encourage others (especially their future dates/husband) to be the very best that they could.

10 comments:

Perry Family said...

Hi! These bookmarks look great! I tried the links, and they took me to an advertisement site. Is there another link available to download those? Thanks for sharing!

taunyaperry@gmail.com

Wendy Smith said...

I just LOVE these bookmarks- your thoughts on this lesson are so similar to mine, too!- I am also being shown an advertisement site- and would love another link to download them. Thanks for your hard work!

run2wen@aol.com

Lindy said...

I love this idea - and I would love the correct link, too! thanks!

lindywall(at)yahoo.com

Angie said...

I love the bookmarks and would love another link. Preparing my lesson now for tomorrow!

Terina said...

Ok I'm right there with everyone...working on a lesson for tomorrow. The link wont work.

littlered527@yahoo.com

The Keetch Family said...

Link didn't work for me either.

Sorry

keetch.2@gmail.com

Charmaine said...

Sorry everyone who is looking for the links... My server that was storing all of them was deleted and so I lost all the online stuff. I still have the originals, but they are on external hardrives and it will take me a bit of time to find them and get them back up. I am so sorry for the inconvenience.

Emily said...

Great idea for the lesson! I am teaching the beehives and think this would be helpful for our lesson. My email is emmie_sue_2000@yahoo.com; will you email the correct link for the bookmarks? Thank you, Emily

Emily said...

Great idea for the lesson! I am teaching the beehives and think this would be helpful for our lesson. My email is emmie_sue_2000@yahoo.com; will you email the correct link for the bookmarks? Thank you, Emily

Jan said...

Hi Charmaine,

We are teaching this lesson this weekend so if are still able to find and post this, please let us know. So super cute! Thanks for sharing.