I Have A Family

I have a family here on earth.
They are so good to me.
I want to spend my life with them through all eternity.

Families can be together forever through Heavenly Father's plan.
I always want to be with my own family and the Lord can show me how I can.

I've been such an IDIOT. So dumb. Anyway, like Scarlett O'Hara - "I-I'll think about that tomorrow." El mohim, the main thing is, I realized something huge. I don't know how to summarize it into a phrase. "The importance of my family", "the only thing that matters in my life is my family," - something like that.

I have been taught that my whole life, but I only just learned it here, from my wonderful Arab family. I can't tell you how big of an impact they have had in my life. So there are lots of things that I can't understand about this culture, but there are so many wonderful, beautiful things. Islamic communities are chaste and righteous. Most importantly, they have one thing completely right: the importance of their family.

The ONLY thing that matters here is the family. It is the base of the society. Everything revolves around family. All of a young girl's life is focused on her marriage, and while the Western world doesn't hesitate to focus on the negative results of this hyperfocus, it fails to note some of the positive results. In general. We don't see the good parts of Islamic culture.

But I lived here, and I tried it for myself. Three months of living here, having many many many many experiences...and I have to say that Islam is correct about families. The family is the MOST important thing.

My Arab mom says that I shouldn't let anybody outside my family bother me. My friends can be idiots, people can forget about me - they can change and become enemies. She says that you can just go inside your house and close your door to the world, but not to your family. Your family matters. You should get angry when something bad happens to your sister; the people you should care about the most, pay attention to the most, and love the most should be your family.

I've been taught this my entire life, but I never learned it until now.

I feel so dumb. It's been so long since the most important thing to me has been my family. I mean, really searching inside myself. The feelings I feel with my arab sisters and my arab mom are similar to the feelings I had when I was a young girl in Naperville, Illinois. I thought that those feelings just ended once you grew up, that they were "childhood". But then, I felt the same way whenever I was around Danny's family. It's like...an end of searching. It's like - being there.

Maybe my restlessness began when my family moved to Massachusetts. I was 8. It was very difficult for us kids, especially Sarah and me. I think that this ever searching ever wandering nature has had positive affects on my life - it may be one of the reasons behind my indelible curiousity, desire to learn, my 9th grade english teacher Dr. Dowe described me as, "interested." A tenacious towards learning, knowing, seeing, feeling, living, experiencing...

However, the negative side of this quality is a lack of satisfaction, of feeling whole, and safe, and calm. These past few months, I have felt friendless and identity-less, and country-less, and many many many stages of culture shock. It occured to me last night that what my Arab mom said was totally completely true: the most important thing in my life is my family.

I love my family so much.

These people here have become like family to me. I can never be "one of them", but they are very close and dear to my heart.

I know how important it is for me to marry in the temple. I know that the most important decisions I will make in my life will involve my family. It makes me sick, the way that marriage and decisions about who you will marry have evolved in BYU mormon culture, but it is true that the most important decision of my life will be who I will marry.

My family is the only thing that will last, beyond my testimony. Muslims know this, and they value their family. They see their children as gifts from God, the most important things in their lives. They visit their cousins, and uncles, and aunts, and care about each other. They talk to each other.

I've learned a lot of things since coming here. Language related things, relationship related things, religion/faith related things, culture related thinsg, how I learn and study best related things, my feelings about my own country and patriotism related things - if all of them were to be erased from my mind except this one idea, that my family is the most important thing, I will go home a better person.

It's not news. I feel kind of silly writing about this, most everybody knows that their family is the most important thing. But it's the first time for me to really know this. There is NOTHING more important, more exciting, or more valuable than eternal life with my family.

Satan knows how important families are, which is why he directly attacks them. Anything that tries to distance me from my family - anybody, or experience, or negative thoughts, or desires, or literature- they are tools Satan uses to destroy us. It's like all of a sudden I have become aware of something that has been around me my whole life. I have to be more on my guard, cling to my family more, and turn away from the influences of the devil in my life more.

I love my family. I love you guys!

Thoughts about Marriage

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am Mormon. I was born, raised, and decided of my own free will that I believe in this faith. I know that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and that he died for me. I know that, even though there are many good people on the earth with many good and righteous ideas, there is ONE complete gospel of Jesus Christ, meaning there can only be one completely true church. I know that this the gospel was restored to the earth in the latter days by the Prophet Joseph Smith. I have the full and complete gospel, and it is true.

The gospel teaches us who we are, and the plan God has for our lives here on earth. From the scriptures, I can learn what I need to do in order to return to Him someday. I need to have faith in Jesus Christ, keep the commandments which have been given to us by all of the prophets including those of our modern days, and I need to continually pray and repent.

I want to marry for love, but love is not enough. When I put my hands together, the space all the way to the left from infinity onwards is the premortal existence, and the space all the way from to the right from infinity onwards is the life after I die, but the space between them is the time here on earth. What I do in this life will determine what I will be able to do in the life to come. Marriage for love is just not good enough.

I have to be able to marry somebody who can be with me in the eternities. I have to be sealed to my husband for time and all eternity, which is an ordinance that can only take place inside the Holy Temple. I can't marry somebody just because I love them; it would be better for me to never marry anybody than to marry somebody outside the temple.

Besides that, the man who I marry will be the father of my children. I want to raise my children the way my parents raised me, knowing about Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon, and the Restored Gospel. If I were to marry outside of my faith, religion would always be a conflict in my home. It is not only something I do not desire, but something that is just completely intolerable for me. Imagine always being against the one person who is supposed to be my supporter, my protector, and my friend? It cannot be.

I don't know what the plan for me is with Arabic. I don't know why I study it, why it interests me, or how it will help me in my future life. I do know that I am not here to find a husband, especially one outside of my faith.

I have a testimony of eternal marriage. I'm not exactly sure why I felt so strongly about writing this - maybe mixed feelings about dating somebody outside my faith, maybe mostly because this feeling is new and important to me. I mean, it's one thing to always be raised with these ideas, and quite another to KNOW them for myself.