The Results are In . . .

SUCCESS! I am so excited about this that I just cannot stop thinking about it! Fantastic! Anyway, here's what we did tonight:

I decided to do a

"How to Have a Happy and Successful Marriage"

theme for Family Home Evening (note: in our Church, families are encouraged to have family night once a week where members of the family get together to just share time and enjoy each other with spiritual lessons and discussions, food, and fun activities - we call it Family Home Evening). I went to lds.org and researched that topic, looking for great talks and quotes I could use. Then I did a comparison between pizza and a happy marriage. Dave had NO idea I had bought these pans (did I mention he LOVES cast iron? Well, he LOVES cast iron). So it was a hit from the start. Here's the breakdown:

For a yummy pizza (happy and successful marriage), you need:
1) Skillet (casing): A complete living of the commandments of the Lord as outlined in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

2) Dough (foundation): Jesus Christ

3) Meat (substance, sustaining ingredient): Temple Covenants

4) Pineapple: Intimacy and fidelity, including honesty, trust, respect, and tenderness between partners.

5) Tomatoes/tomato sauce (*Note: Dave doesn't like fresh tomatoes, hence the reason this represents things you might not like but that add color, flavor, and necessary nutrients in my scenario): Unselfishness in all its forms; choosing your spouse's needs above your own; making personal sacrifices that hurt a little sometimes, losing the battles to win the war, etc.

6) Herbs/Spices/Seasonings (essential ingredients and flavors that are sometimes individually overlooked but make a huge difference to the end product): This quote from Howard W. Hunter covers it all -- "Teach the gospel to your family through regular family home evening, family prayer, devotional and scripture-reading time, and other teaching moments. Give special emphasis to preparation for missionary service and temple marriage. [Fathers], exercise your priesthood through performing the appropriate ordinances for your family and by giving blessings to your wife and children. Next to your own salvation, . . . there is nothing so important to you as the salvation of your spouse and children."

7) Olives (necessary, healthy "fats"; the things you might be tempted to cut out but really need for things to function and progress): Kindness and consideration to keep the love alive and growing (i.e. small, random acts of kindness; love notes; inexpensive just-because gifts; individualized service to let you know you're thinking about each other in the midst of craziness and life demands, etc.)

8) Cheese ( tops it all off; keeps everything else from moving, shifting, falling apart): Humility, forgiveness, repentance. I really liked this thought from Brent A. Barlow of the 70 -- "Many married couples may realize, as we did early in our marriage, that late at night when they are tired is not always the best time to resolve conflicts. But undoubtedly the spirit of Paul's counsel to the Ephesians would motivate us to resolve conflicts quickly so they do not persist and grow more intense over time. The Savior also admonished His disciples to resolve conflicts with dispatch so they could approach their God with pure hearts (see Matt. 5:23-24)."

There are a lot of comparisons you could make, but these were some of the ones that stood out to me and some of the things that have been on my mind lately as Dave and I have evaluated where we stand and how we can improve our relationship to meet our goal of having a marriage where we are both absolutely crazy about each other at 90+ years of age.

I made a large "slide" of each topping and comparison, had them all set out on the kitchen island with napkins covering them until each was "unveiled" and then we discussed. The great thing about this is that we know the general "sunday school" answers (the automatic answers you instinctively know and shout out in discussions but may or may not apply all the time); but covering this in Family Home Evening let us talk about these things in the specific context of OUR marriage. We know what we are doing well, we have plenty of fond memories of doing each and every one of these things, and we have plenty of room to grow and improve on each item. It was a PERFECT night! A MUST-repeat (next time with COOKIE DOUGH and SUNDAES).

Incidentally, I found a blog post with a General Conference tradition of doing Skookies after Priesthood session (with or without the actual pan). LOVED the recipe and the idea.