Erika (Swensen) Powell

I wanted to talk about grace. Specifically, the grace of Christ. Because even though it is something that I don’t fully understand, I know that it can be a great power in our lives. Now I haven’t experienced first hand a divorce, my parents even with their problems are together and can find joy in their marriage. But during the lesson this week I just kept thinking about the role of grace in this notion. The grace of Christ is a diving help or strength that is given through the mercy and love of God, and everyone needs it. Grace is an enabling power from God. In 2 Timothy verse 1 it says: Thou therefore…be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. There is strength available through the grace of Christ. Jacob 4:7 in the Book of Mormon teaches us that grace gives us power. Romans 5:2 we access grace through faith. 1 Peter 5:5 grace is given to the humble. Divorce doesn’t happen all at once and neither do a lot of things. It starts simple. With small little things that c

Becoming a parent has been something that I have been both excited and terrified for my whole life. And a big part of that is what a crazy responsibility is it! I grew up being taught that having a family is pretty much the whole point of this life. Yes, we can to earth to gain a body and to learn from our mistakes and become better. But the Heavenly Father commanded His children to multiply and replenish the earth. We are taught that we have the responsibility to “rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World.) Which to me can sound kind of scary. We are to be responsible to help these innocent children to be able to make their own choices and recognize right from wrong. And something that really stood out to me during my class lectures was the idea o

I love my dad. He is a wonderful example of teaching with kindness. I have always felt that I could talk to my dad about anything and his advice has always meant   a lot to me. My dad has taught me so many different skills and he I feel is the reason I know why its so important to be responsible. This lesson was a lot more to me than just finance. Because my father has played a huge roll in my life, and I always wanted to marry a man who would be able to play that role in my children’s lives. I feel like providing for a family can really go beyond just making sure every one is fed, and has a roof over their head. L Tom Perry once said, ” To safeguard this masterpiece, the Lord gave to man the duty and responsibility to be the provider and protector.” Every child has the need to feel secure. And the place they should feel safe is in the security of their home. Its so unfortunate and breaks my heart when children don’t have that opportunity. Something that I will alway

Communication is one of the first things we learn. Even when we couldn’t talk, we were finding ways to receive our needs, like when we were hungry or needed anything we would cry. It is something that just come naturally to us all, we all have a need to communicate. But then why in the world is it so complicated now that we are older? I think there are many factors that can play into why communication can be difficult for some individuals but there are a few that I wanted to highlight on. Something that I don’t think gets mentioned a whole lot is that vulnerability is kind of crucial to meaningful communication. We can say a lot of things we can talk at people all we want with no real deep meaning. But is that what you really want? I know its not what I want. I value meaningful relationships but somethings getting there seems impossible. Vulnerable means capable of being physically or emotionally wounded. I don’t know about anyone else but that is a terrible thought. Why

Trial, struggle, crisis, drama, stressor, annoyance or what ever you call it or endure it can put a strain on a family. And I know that everyone knows from experiences that their family isn’t perfect. There are so many things that individuals and families can experience that cause pain and sorrow. Sometimes it is even something of our own doing. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be devastating. How can you bounce back from some trials? Like the death of a child, or the only source of income gets cut? It is one thing for individuals to have stressful situations or hard trials, but what happens when it happens to a family unit? Something that I was reminded of this week is the power of optimism. Bad things happen, people have tragedies and trials that is a known fact. And no matter what you do to avoid it something will come. But isn’t that really the point of life? We want to become something. Become better, become stronger, smarter, kinder. We all want to become something gr

So, I want to be very open and honest about my feelings for this week’s topic. In class we discussed sexual intimacy. Well, more on martial intimacy but I’ll get to that later. If I am being completely honest with myself, I don’t think I every really formally learned about sex. I would be able to gather information or discern from different contexts, but it seemed to generally come from the media. I was taught that sexual intimacy is reserved for a man and woman who were lawfully and legally married. I also knew that it was a very sacred thing, that it is a Godly power. So therefore, I knew how important it was to live a virtuous and chaste life. I knew that I wanted to save my self for marriage and that was very important to me. However, after this lesson I firmly believe that the media has distorted my views and thoughts on sex. Which I knew before this week’s lesson, the adversary has worked very hard to make this a weapon of evil. Which truly terrified me. As excited as I w

I’ve been married for almost six months now, and I have been looking forward to this week’s lesson since the beginning of the semester. This week was all about transitions in marriage. The advice that I received over and over before I got married was the fact that marriage is hard. Hard but so fulfilling and rewarding, kind of like the same advice I got before serving a mission. But I feel like this advice can instill a lot of fear. And if I’m being honest this fear has stayed in the back of my mind. But the fact that marriage is hard is justified, especially the first year. Because you have two individuals transitioning to trying to become one unit. Two people who came from different backgrounds, experiences, and possibly even standards. It is a huge adjustment. But also you got married for a reason didn’t you? You got married because you love this person and you want to grow your love and become one. You want to become a team, and create a family together so why is it so hard