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.

Now, be faithful, be true, go forward, be ambitious. Don't short-circuit yourself. Don't stop now. Keep growing. Keep going. Educate your minds and your spirits and never lose sight of the fact that you are a child of God with a divine destiny and capability of doing great and good and wonderful things. Don't sell yourselves short. Don't cheapen yourselves. You know who you are. Each of you knows that you are a child of God and that your Heavenly Father expects something great and noble and good of you.

There are good people throughout the world, men and women who love God, who are earnestly striving, even without the fulness of the gospel, to be true to the standards of decency and integrity they have been taught. Indeed, everyone has access to some measure of light and truth from the Almighty. President Brigham Young declared that there has never been “a man or woman upon the face of the earth, from the days of Adam to this day, who has not been enlightened, instructed, and taught by the revelations of Jesus Christ” (Deseret News Weekly, 8 Feb. 1855, 2). The prophets teach that if people will be true to the light within them—the Light of Christ—they will be led to the higher light of the Holy Ghost found in the covenant gospel, either in this life or in the life to come. “And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit” (D&C 84:46; see D&C 84:47–48; also Gospel Doctrine, 67–68; Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [1985], 260–61).

In fact, is it not possible that one reason so many parallels and resemblances exist between the fulness of the gospel and the various approximations of the truth is that men and women are responding to what might be called “spirit memories” of the past? These would be intimations of things we once knew that now seem just out of conscious awareness. President Joseph F. Smith observed: “All those salient truths which come home so forcibly to the head and heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit. Can we know anything here that we did not know before we came?” (Gospel Doctrine, 13). Is this not why so many who join the Church recognize in the teachings of the missionaries things that they feel they have always known, things, interestingly enough, that are not necessarily to be found in their former religion? We generally refer to those who come into the Church as converts, implying that they turned from another belief to embrace the testimony of the Restoration. While that happens in many instances, those who are baptized will often say, “Everything the missionaries told me I already believed!” That which we call a conversion often seems to be the awakening of a distant memory, an echo from the past. “People ask me why I left my old church,” the convert says. “I tell them it was not a matter of leaving my old church so much as it was a matter of coming home.”

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.

If you will remember who you are and act accordingly; if you will return with honor from every calling, task, and assignment; if you will be true to the Savior’s name and worthy of His eternal blessings, you will always have the light of the Holy Ghost to be with you, to lead you, to guide you, and to buoy you up. You will never want for what to say or how to act. It will be given you.

How you live, what you represent, how you treat your associates, and how you honor and revere your companion and your family will spread the influence of our Savior Jesus Christ. For there is no greater Christian service than to become like Him, heed the counsel of His Spirit, and do His will.