Rick + Jeanette ~ TLA...

Rick serves as first counselor in the Elders quorum presidency at church and each first Sunday of the month the presidency takes turns teaching the lesson. Yesterday was Rick's turn and he taught a lesson on family unity. As part of his lesson he asked me to come in and share a few of my thoughts on the subject. Scary. I remembered how in the movie, A League of Their Own, about the women's baseball team, Tom Hanks tells one woman, "There's no crying in baseball." Well that's how I felt about speaking to Rick's class, "There's no crying in Elders quorum." And I can't speak about anything special or spiritual without boobing, but I did it anyway and it went well with fairly controlled boobing (no ugly cry or squeaky voiced sobbing) so I was happy. One of the things I shared in the lesson was the wonderful advice Rick and I received on our wedding day. We had the privilege of being married by my Grandpa Johnson and he told us, "Never go to bed angry." My grandparents had a very loving marriage so I figured he knew what he was talking about and have worked hard to heed his words all of these years. And I can honestly say that in 18 years of marriage, Rick and I have never gone to bed angry. There have been times that we stayed up til three in the morning working things out, but we always do work them out and can sleep peacefully snuggled together and wake up blissfully in love the next morning. It really is the best advice for a happy marriage. Working things out before going to sleep means that problems never have the chance to fester, grow and get out of hand. I will be forever grateful to my Grandpa for blessing us with his wisdom.