Our goal should be to engage in self-evaluation and reflection that is in the middle of this continuum: Critical but Healthy Self-Evaluation. When we engage in critical but healthy self-evaluation we can be honest with ourselves. We can clearly see our strengths and our weaknesses. We know what we can do to improve our weaknesses. We recognize that through the atoning sacrifice of our Savior we do not have to be perfect today, and we can know what things we must do to strengthen ourselves.

I have found that three times in particular provide perfect settings for deep, personal self-evaluation and reflection: during daily, personal scripture study; while partaking of the sacrament each week in sacrament meeting; and when we are in the temple.

RELATIONSHIP COROLLARIES

1. Can I be my own self in this relationship?
2. Am I emotionally honest in expressing my affection?
3. Are we friends first? Romance always follows, it never precedes friendship in a proper relationship.
4. Are we entitled to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our relationship?
5. Am I dating someone I already know I would never marry?
6. Am I the person I know I am when in their presence?
7. Does being with them make me feel ennobled, that I can be better than I am?
8. Am I being real in this relationship?
9. Does this relationship allow me to express my needs and concerns in my own way?
10. Is this relationship built on respect?

CONCLUSION: Selecting an eternal companion is the freest decision we will ever make in mortality. It therefore requires the most effort in making the determination that we will then counsel with the Lord about. We need to bend every effort to learn if our potential companion is what and who we want eternally. Then, and only then, can you expect confirmation from the Lord concerning your decision.

It troubled me that the question kept returning. I have come to believe this happened because, like a lot of other people of my generation, I had got it wrong. Yes, it takes a lifetime, or longer, to achieve simplicity. But I was not making much progress at all. The problem did not lie in my objectives. My objectives were lofty--never stooping to dishonesty, not compromising my principles, standing forward to defend the right and make corrections when things didn't go as they should. The problem was that pursuing these objectives was a project too much in behalf of myself. I could not see it then, but in a very subtle way my quest continued the very preoccupation with myself I was trying to overcome. And it twisted my goal of being true into the goal of being true to me, and being true to me, for my sake, often came before the interests and needs of others. Perhaps my way of pursuing my quest was like that of the prodigal son's elder brother, outwardly ever faithful in his duty but inwardly resentful when his brother received the public honor he thought should be his. My way showed itself as I responded in a hurried manner to a student's question in the hall--because, after all, I had important things to do; and in a conversation with a colleague, thinking of what I would say next instead of listening appreciatively; and in becoming inwardly indignant about a brother's false doctrine in priesthood meeting. No matter how rigorous, a quest to be true when undertaken on one's own behalf can never put to silence the disquieting voice that says, "You're not honest, simple, solid, and true. You're still in it for yourself. It's your own agenda that you care most about." Stubbornly setting out to be true cannot be glorious if I do not lift my focus higher than myself.

When men, women, and children are honest with God and pay their tithes and offerings, the Lord gives them wisdom whereby they can do as much or more with the remainder than they could if they had not been honest with the Lord. Many times they are blessed and prospered in various ways—spiritually, physically, and mentally, as well as materially.