"By loving your spouse you honor God

Here is my church talk given in my Ward today.

My name is Iris Marshall. I was born in Washington state, just outside of Seattle, and lived there with my family until I was 18.

Life was tough. I won’t get into too many particulars, but my parents had a tough time with their marriage. I remember times when my sisters and I probably around ages 3-8 would come out of our bedroom shaking our fingers and tisking our parents as they stood arguing in the livingroom. So many times they, in anger, threatened with divorce only to get a response of “well, good, then I won’t have to do it.”

I have no idea to this day what the arguments were about. As a child the anger and hostility were terrifying. It seemed that my life would be forever a battleground torn apart by forces outside of my control.

As a teenager, I remember thinking that it would be a great thing for my parents to divorce. Then perhaps I could possibly have some peace in my life.

Peace came to my life after I went to school at Ricks college and began living with peaceful roommates, who perhaps didn’t understand my way of conflict resolution, but were patient, and able through their loving examples to teach me better ways to settle conflict.

In 1993 I served the Lord as a full time missionary in Australia. I was blessed with amazing companions. The experiences there are still a valuable resource in my life. Living so closely with another person on a 24 hour basis was usually fun. I loved the constant company of most of my companions. There was one sister I struggled with. Life with her was tough. When it was time for transfers, I pleaded with my mission president to let her be transferred. He told me my companion just needed more love and that I needed to pray for it. Things worsened after that. How could I possibly love this woman who was reeking havoc on my peace? Wasn’t I on the Lord’s errand? How was I supposed to love someone who was making my life on this earth so incredibly difficult? I prayed and I prayed–for the Lord to soften the mission president’s heart and make this person go away. It didn’t work. Transfers came again and guess what? I was stuck. I started praying in earnest to be able to see her good qualities. And guess what. Gradually the lights came on. She was transformed in my eyes. Though the difficult things she had been doing were still present, I could see her as a daughter of God.

After my mission I returned home to my parents. They had changed and grown in love for each other.

I moved to Utah in 1995 and in 1998 I met my sweet JohnE. I had met him once already a few weeks previously, but I guess somehow I missed seeing who he really is–he was wearing a too short suit from his high school days. I just remember thinking, “he’s cute... too bad about his suit.” But when I met him the second time I was dazzled. I popped my head into the clerks office to say hello to the guy I had a huge crush on and saw this really handsome man sitting behind the desk. “I haven’t met you, I am Iris.” He was much too polite to say that yes indeed we had only met 2 weeks previous and that I had shunned him. I will say on my behalf that he had gotten his shaggy mane trimmed up and had highlighted his spikes. Anyway, the story continues I had to get to know this guy. I had a potluck that night and invited everyone I knew from church.

The potluck was in full swing before JE arrived. In fact the food was nearly gone--he was 3 hours late. And everyone was gathered around the fire ring in my backyard passing around a guitar. When JE pulled up a chair next to me forcing the people in on my left to make way for him, my impression was, “man, he is bold ” and I liked that. However, he was thinking “that was nice of her to save a place for me.”

It was October 11th when we met. On Halloween we knew we loved each other. To my sweet young women friends I don’t suggest this as the example of how meeting and falling in love works for everyone. JohnE and my relationship is very unique.

On April 24th, 1999, we were married in the Mt Timpanogas Temple, yes, just 6 months after we met. My parents, JohnE’s parents, and two of his sisters and their husbands were there.

The first summer we were married we lived in Michigan. JE had an internship at GM. We had a fun extended honeymoon. Weekends we would go explore the surrounding area. We had a blast.

On our way back to BYU we stopped at Nauvoo. This was before the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple. We found ourselves in a little building. I don’t remember what that building was, but at the time we watched a slide show of the pioneers and their struggles to build Nauvoo, and their plight as they left it. We learned about the temple being in operation 24 hours a day to endow people with power from on high and seal families together as they prepared to flee into the wilderness, some never to step foot in a temple again in their lives. The Nauvoo temple was destroyed and another not dedicated for another 30 years.

JohnE and I were the only ones in the room that day and we wept with gratitude considering the richness of the blessings of being sealed in the house of the Lord. Ours is a Temple Marriage, a covenant between our Heavenly Father and ourselves. In D&C 42:22 we read that a man should love his wife with his whole soul. Our spouses are the only other person besides the Lord whom we have been commanded to love with our whole soul.

In February 2003 we moved to Michigan for JE’s work–again with GM. We were only there for a couple months when JE was unexpectedly laid off. I will never forget that day–he had been having such an unhappy work experience there, but everyday he would go to work ( I was so proud of him for that ). One day I answered a knock at the door to find my sweet husband ready to burst into tears saying “I just got fired” I started to laugh, hugged him tightly and ushered him into our apartment with words of condolences and congratulations and relief. The next few months we spent working on our testimonies by going to the temple regularly, reading scriptures, praying, and we were richly blessed. I would start to panic and get very stressed out about what on earth were we going to do??? But JE would console me, asking me what I had learned from our prayers. The answer to my prayers was always the same, “be patient, I have you in my hand.” Our marriage and testimonies grew tremendously in those months. We learned trust, understanding, and patience. If we lost everything in the world, we would always have each other. What a remarkable gift.

In April Conference 1991, President Hinckley said: Marriage is beautiful when beauty is looked for and cultivated. It can be ugly and uncomfortable when one is looking for faults and is blinded to virtue...
There must be recognition on the part of both husband and wife of the solemnity and sanctity of marriage and of the God-given design behind it. There must be a willingness to overlook small faults, to forgive, and then to forget. There must be a holding of one’s tongue. Temper is a vicious and corrosive thing that destroys affection and casts out love.

The last few days of August we drove back to Utah to an uncertain future. Our heart were sad. But still we looked forward to being reunited with family and friends.

The very day we had left Michigan, was the day Hyundai/Kia had offered JE a job, here in California. We were so humbled, and grateful.

I am so grateful for my sweet JohnE. My partiarical blessing tells me that my husband will be an example of Love and Righteousness to me. He has indeed fulfilled this example.

Mom and Dad Marshall had been trying to go on a mission for a number of years and so when the chance came they were elated. Dad was the sole executor of the Automotive design program at BYU. He wrote the program as his master’s thesis, thus forming in actuality the entire industrial design program. He wanted to retire for a long time but the school could not find a suitable replacement. Finally, one way or another Mom and Dad decided they should just put in their papers. However during a physical, Dad was discovered to have minor prostate cancer. It was treated and he was cleared for take off. However, the church health requirements were different, and they would have been forced to wait 6 months to be cleared by the church to go. That did not stop them. They had made up their minds, and knew of a missionary couple who were coming home from Hawaii, and hadn’t found replacements. So they went. 2 Days later, they received a call to serve at BYU Hawaii.
It was the perfect year for them. Dad golfed or Surf fished each morning before going to the school to teach art. Mom was assigned to help out in the study center. Their lives were filled with new friends, and unexpected meetings of old friends. Most of their children and their families came to visit them there. They had a truly perfect and amazing year in the Lord’s service. In August, mom and Dad came back stateside for a check up. Dad was diagnosed with phase 4 terminal colon cancer. He passed away in January 2008. I tell you this story because in that last year together, mom and dad grew in love for each other. Their differences that several years previously had seemed irreconcilable, had dissipated. They had learned to love, respect and just plain old BE together.

Again President Hinckley: There is a remedy. It is found in the gospel of the Son of God. He it was who said, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matt. 19:6.) The remedy for most marriage stress is not in divorce. It is in repentance. It is not in separation. It is in simple integrity that leads a man to square up his shoulders and meet his obligations. It is found in the Golden Rule.

The first phrase of the proclamation on the family “We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

by loving your spouse, you honor God.

President Hinckley said: Surely no one reading the scriptures, both ancient and modern, can doubt the divine concept of marriage. The sweetest feelings of life, the most generous and satisfying impulses of the human heart, find expression in a marriage that stands pure and unsullied above the evil of the world.

Such a marriage, I believe, is the desire—the hoped-for, the longed-for, the prayed-for desire—of men and women everywhere.

President Hinkleys council for achieving this is:
Wives, look upon your husbands as your precious companions and live worthy of that association. Husbands, see in your wives your most valued asset in time or eternity, each a daughter of God, a partner with whom you can walk hand in hand, through sunshine and storm, through all the perils and triumphs of life. Parents, see in your children sons and daughters of your Father in Heaven, who will hold you accountable for them. Stand together as their guardians, their protectors, their guides, their anchors.

The strength of the nations lies in the homes of the people. God is the designer of the family. He intended that the greatest of happiness, the most satisfying aspects of life, the deepest joys should come in our associations together and our concerns one for another as fathers and mothers and children.

by loving your spouse, you honor God.