One thing that I learned recently in my marriage class is about self esteem. It think that it is interesting that most people think that they will be able to gain self esteem by doing things for themselves. Achieving a goal or receiving an award for something. But in fact it is when you are focusing on helping others that you gain self esteem. My mother has taught me many things over the years and there are many things she has taught me about self esteem. She told me recently that she is reading a book called "The Myth of Self-Esteem". The myth is that when you work on yourself to become better you come to love yourself. While in a way that may be true, the best way for you to come to love yourself is to love others first.
Another thing my mother used to tell me when I was young was to look outside myself. See who needs help. Especially in situations where I was feeling self conscious or awkward, she would always tell me that the way for me to feel comfortable was look around and see who is probably feeling even more self conscious and awkward than me. This works wonders. I can personally tell you that if you ever in one of those situations follow this advise.
Also, there is a song called "The greatest love of all" by whitney houston, (very popular song) and they lyrics talk about loving yourself before you try to love someone else and most people believe that but in my opinion, loving others is the way that you come to love yourself. I think this is really important to preparing for marriage because although you should know who you are before you get married it is through relationships that you learn to love yourself and be confident in who you are.

On Monday of this week at 11am, I watched the announcement of the new Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There was a new Presidency set apart because the prophet passed away on Sunday January 27th. I will miss him greatly but what happened on Monday morning has helped me with this loss.
When they announced the new presidency: President Thomas S. Monson, Prophet, Seer and Revelator, President Eyring, First counselor, and President Uchtdorf, Second counselor. This feeling of overwhelming emotion swept over my body. I feel so strongly that these men are called of God and have been specifically called to lead this church at this time.
One thing that I love about the church is that it is so organized. We all knew who the new prophet was going to be and the church still continues on even when a prophet dies. There is perfect order to the system we have in the church. In the Catholic church when a Pope dies, it is a big deal to decide who will be the new Pope and people all over the world watch and wait to see who is chosen because they don't know who it will be. Some people may be disappointed about who the new pope is but everyone in the church knew it would be President Monson. He had such a spirit and power about him as he answered the questions at the Press Conference. There was a visual difference to see the burden he now carries. I am so grateful for modern revelation in the church today and for a living Prophet of God on the Earth.
Another thing I have been thinking about lately is equality in marriage. This is a principle that I have seen my whole life. My parents are both on the same level when it comes to making decisions. I love this because my parents are able to avoid MANY arguments because they trust each other's opinions. Of course, their marriage isn't perfect and sometimes my mom may have a better answer or solution to something like 'what new wallpaper we should get or what shirt would be more appropriate for a party' but my father understands that and trusts her opinion with those things. Just like my mother trusts him when he says that we should use this particular mechanic or barbeque the meat this way. They trust each other with these things and agree on them. This is one of the ways they avoid arguments because they see each other as equals and I think that is one of the most important things in a marriage.