Random Thoughts

Baptism: baptism is like an emergency management phone list refrigerator magnet with a writeable contact phone number for Heavenly Father.  Your magnet in Heaven is wiped clean by the Saviour's atonement, which erases everything you did wrong, big or little.  The Saviour sets up a permanent phone line. You write on your magnet, every time you "call" Heavenly Father in prayer.  Baptism unlocks Heavenly Father's refrigerator, with limitless blessings to eat.

Dream on 08-November-2014:  A family temple wedding was being planned, with eternal families in the autumn as the theme.  The announcement background was a night flash photo of the backyard lawn, mostly covered in large yellow leaves, but with patches of green grass.  There was a portrait photo of the bride and groom, with smaller photos of each set of 2 parents to the right and left of the bride and groom, and the 4 grandparents of the bride and groom to the left and right of the parents.  The text:
   John and Mary Smith    and    Fred and Janet Jones
             Announce the eternal marriage of their
   Daughter Ann Smith      and    Son James Jones
At the Salt Lake LDS Temple on Friday 28 October 2015
                                        Etc

Dream on 30-August-2015:  What people fail to realize, is that the gift of God is the Atonement and Spirit of the Lord, not the actions of the Lord.  Focus on the Atonement and Spirit of the Lord.

Strong/Happy Family Tips

Ideas to make a happy and strong family. No particular order. List being generated.
Most of these ideas have been used in my family.  If you have a dull/flat/tasteless marriage and/or family, you have too short a list of family strategies, or you are not trainable. Train yourself and your spouse, starting now.

3 fundamental rules for a happy marriage and family.  Ignoring any of these rules is asking for trouble.
1. Find a quality spouse who will stick with you and nobody else, forever.  Returned missionaries improve the odds.  Find people who serve others frequently.
2. Improve your character to be Christlike.  Think and act like the Saviour.  Participate in Sunday school and priesthood/Relief Society lessons.  Go to the temple frequently, where the Lord works on your character.
3. Develop strategies for happy families.  See below.  Follow the example of neighbors' happy families.

Principle: when you find something good and useful, it is fine to be greedy and load up all you can, as fast as you can.  Roll up a 100-car freight train, and tell the shippers "Get moving.  Bring me more.  Now!"

1. Frame and put the "Proclamation On The Family" on the wall. See http://www.lds.org
2. Hold family home evening every week.
3. Have family and personal prayer every day.
4. Read the scriptures (especially the Book Of Mormon) every day.
5. Read the Book Of Mormon to your newborn babies. They learn the complex sentence structure.
6. Say "Love you-lots-tons of lots" many times per day, to wife/husband and children.
7. Play classical music in the house. See Michael Ballam video on rock music brain damage.
8. Thank wife and children for their help with chores.
8. Compliment whoever cleaned the kitchen, on how amazing the kitchen looks.
9. Forbid swear words in the house.
10. Let the children make family gospel rules (example: our teenage girls' rule on reading labels for caffeine).
11. Put humor into your life (example: watching for cars depends on how flat you want to be).
12. Take the children to see temples.  Walk around the temple grounds.
13. Put temple pictures on the walls.
14. Work with the children on household chores.  Assign and rotate chores. (Good first-grade teaching tool.)
15. Bear your testimony of the gospel to family and in testimony meeting.  Encourage children in theirs.
16. Carry out stated penalties for disobeying rules (many examples in the scriptures).
17. Give children attention as needed, not just when convenient..
18. Accept that your marriage and family will not be immediately perfect.  That may take 1000's of years.
19. Play down differences of opinion.  Accept different opinions as part of mortal life.
20. Be trainable.  Look for better ideas in marriage and family.
21. Tell your wife/husband what you want, but be nonchalant about not getting it.
22. Enforce the rule about no dating before age 16.
23. Put the Book Of Mormon and Bible in noticeable places in the living room.
24. Hang a "Raehl - A Forever Family" (your family's name) sign at the house entrance.
25. Get a memorable car license plate for your wife (TOPWIFE/BESTWIF/CUTYPIE).
26. Take the children to classical music concerts (matinees).
27. Hug your wife and children frequently (wife many times per day).
28. Give your wife/husband lots of "hot stuff" looks per day (2nd/3rd/4th look each time).
29. Tell your wife she's scorching hotter than any collection of movie stars.
30. Encourage your children to find high-quality friends.
31. Tell your children about the 5-second kiss rule.  Read my post.
32. Husbands give priesthood blessings as needed.
33. Leave love notes to your wife/husband lying around (Wifer is ----)
34. Give the children music lessons (piano etc).  Buy a piano.
35. Frequently tell your children they are such a good boy/girl.  You are very proud of them.
36. Set an honesty example.  Let the children watch as you complain about grocery stores charging too little.
37. Hold progress interviews with your children.
38. Keep the childrens' papers and drawings in a folder or scrapbook for each.
39. Encourage the family to write journals.
40. Read stories to the children.  Substitute their names for story characters.
41. Encourage the family to research ancestors' names.  Submit those names for temple work.
42. Tell the children that Gramma didn't really die.  She just moved to heaven to help them from there.
43. Encourage the children to prepare for missions.  "This will help you on your mission."
44. Encourage teenage children to perform baptisms in the temple.
45. Take the children to church every Sunday.  Allow them to draw on paper, to keep reverent.
46. Work with the children to learn to cook, mend clothes, etc.
47.  Search http://www.lds.org for "family relations". Read General Conference talks on families.
48. Teach your children full English (or your language) as soon as they can talk.  Teach sign language before.
49. Ask your neighbors how they solved your current problem.
50. Smile a lot, especially at your wife/husband and children.
51. Encourage your children to play/make friends with other children.  Let them be children.
52. Be wary of office romances.  Keep your personal life at home while working.
53. Spend one-on-one time with each of your children, periodically.
54. Read my post on keeping a wife happy.
55.  Take your family camping, state fair, canoeing.
56.  Kiss your wife/husband every time you leave the house for work, school, errands.
57.  Tell others (testimony meeting) that your family loves you, and you love them too.
58.  Realize living prophets keep you out of the fog, because they talk face-to-face with the Lord.
59.  Use clever tactics to train husband/wife. Compliment their learned skills.
60.  One-up your spouse's requests.  She asks to say "amazing", one-up "mind-boggling amazing".
61. Teach the family to research anything anyone says, using the Sprit of the Lord for guidance.
62. Teach the family good health habits, and the usefulness of herbs.
63.  Listen to everyone else's advice, using the Spirit of the Lord as a guide.
64.  Listen/watch LDS General Conference together as a family, with treat rewards (box of ice cream).
65.  One-up the Bishop's suggestions-read Book of Mormon 3 times per year, not just once.
66.  Teach the children to work, no chore help means no allowance.  Everything is done by someone.
67.  Go to the temple often, watch for symbols/lessons in everything seen/heard/done.
68. Say "Please" and "Thank-You" frequently to your spouse and children.
69. Restrict TV watching, computer gaming, Internet social media, to very little.  Talk with family instead.
70. Get amateur (ham) radio licenses, and participate in radio communication events.
71. Listen to classical music frequently in the home.  See Michael Ballam comments on benefits.
72.Teach the children that if they burn their bridges, they have a mess if the situation rights itself.
73. Teach the children that they can choose anything, but they cannot choose the consequences.
74.

No Families In Heaven?

This Internet chat about the US Thanksgving holiday, says everything about whether there should be families in heaven. Somehow, people think that not having families (only buddies) in eternity is fine, but our character and desires are actually cast in concrete and magnified many times after we get our job transfer papers to the afterlife.

Starbird stupid holidays giving thanks and everybody forgets me
Silenthill Happy thanks GG
Starbird I wanted to talk to ONE relative any one of them and they dont return my phone calls
Starbird thanks Silenthill its not so fun if your alone
Starbird well i paid to eat with 100 people
Starbird so i wasnt technically alone

Burning fires in heaven

LDS doctrine talks about living in eternal burnings in heaven. This sounds strange, as non-LDS doctrine portrays the fires of hell.

An inspiration came to me. Think about the brute person who loves to spend his time at bars. He would be very miserable, if told he must spend his time in art galleries, and never in bars. This is a secret to keeping evil spirits at bay. Concentrate your thoughts on wonderful things, like classical music concerts, a loving spouse, etc. This will scare off evil spirits.

Eternal burnings refers to the refining fire of heaven, where love and purity are as the air we breathe in mortality. The refining fire causes unclean thoughts and actions to dissipate out of us, leaving us a very loving person of everything.

The 5-second Kiss Rule

I have known a number of well-adjusted and well-meaning people, who went too deep into kissing and necking, and wound up in "shotgun" marriages. This happens, because after a time of kissing and necking, hormones take over. They then require more physical contact, regardless of their intentions or training. This contact, outside of marriage, destroys the intense feeling of belonging together in marriage.

The sense of belonging takes a far more enjoyable and varied aspect, when you consider a marriage that lasts forever, and blossoms like a rose for billions of years. I cannot, as a mortal, imagine what love for my eternal companion will be like in a billion years, only that it will be far more wonderful then than now, as it develops over the millions of years. Even now, my marriage has blossomed over 34 years, as the Spirit directed me to tips, while I was in temple sessions (see post on how to keep a wife happy).

An inspiration came about a 5-second kiss rule: if you are not married, no more than a 5-second kiss. If you are married, unless you are in public, no less than a 5-second kiss. This covers both undesired events before you are married, and drifting-apart when you are married.

Unlimited Happiness

Most people only want a small amount of happiness, limited by their understanding of happiness and what is desirable. More than that, scares them out of their skin. More happiness may require a drastic overhaul of what they understand, and require training that they will not tolerate.

The Gospel Of Jesus Christ, as taught by the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, is designed for unlimited happiness. It is based on what Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ know, which is a far better understanding of happiness and what works, than we know. Only by directly tapping into their knowledge, without interpretation by mortals, can we be re-trained in how we view happiness and be re-trained in what we do and think.

What are the fundamental aspects of happiness?

I had an inspiration from the Lord via the Holy Ghost. Research scriptures on light. I noticed that light in the scriptures is often connected with other words, such as love, truth. These are fundamental aspects of happiness.

We have a small understanding of love, unless the Spirit stretches our imagination. Love is many-dimensioned. It is connected with love of people, animals, artwork, and harmony among everything.

Family is a source of multi-faceted love and harmonious interaction. Families were designed to last forever, when properly created in the right place by authorized persons. I smile at my warehouse co-workers who "live together" without marriage (what in my youth we called "shacking up"). In spite of their living arrangements, they often go "home" to their "family", their "dad" and "mom". They will be catastrophically disappointed when they pass beyond the veil, and find out their temporary choices of no marriage and no actual family, are made permanent forever. No family anymore, because there never was a family.

Truth is an understanding of what really is, according to how Heavenly Father understands all things. It includes all of social rules, nuclear physics rules, beauty rules, and everything else.

Beauty has rules, but is whatever Heavenly Father sees as appealing. Beauty includes blending of form, dimension, time, light, harmonious interaction between animals, plants, architecture, time, light, and everything else.

Under-estimating non-marriage relationships

I work with quite a few people who simply live with their partners. From my perspective of my eternal marriage, this makes me sad. However, a thought came one night. I should not under-estimate those relationships. There are some important rules in mortal life:

1. Never under-estimate yourself.
2. Never under-estimate those you associate with, including your relationships with them.
3. The most important rule, never under-estimate the power of God to make worthwhile things permanent forever. If you choose that which cannot be made permanent, you are basing your life on puffs of smoke.

If you don't want to short-change your life, estimate highly. Find the strategies that multiply those life benefits that are worthwhile, and which make them permanent forever.

How To Keep A Wife Happy

Sometimes married partners develop the idea that romance has gone out of their marriage. This is nonsense. You may have to encourage your partner with subtle hints, like insisting the husband open the car door for the wife.

I learned many tips for keeping my wife happy, over my lifetime. Here they are:

1. Read about King Arthur and medieval chivalry. Heavenly Father likes chivalry. You should too.
2. Pay attention in the Holy Temple to hints about marriage.
3. Pick a girl who would dump you like a hot potato, if you suggested being married out of the Holy Temple, so your marriage lasts beyond death for eternity.
4. Keep the idea that if you "play around" with your body before marriage, the best girl in the universe may dump you because you belong to whoever you played with.
5. Use revelation from your Heavenly Father via the Holy Ghost, to be the epoxy glue that holds you together.
6. Hold hands often.
7. Put your loving arm around her.
8. Give her hot-stuff looks constantly. I do this, just about every time I go past her.
9. Like a knight, walk between her and the evil mud thrown at her, to protect her.
10. Per chivalry, stand when she enters the room. Pull out a chair for her at the table.
11. Listen to her ideas. Two heads are an order of magnitude better than one.
12. Open doors for your wife. Be sure your children see this.
13. Tell your wife you love her, continually. Many times more than once a day.
14. Kiss her often. Kiss her before leaving for work, and after coming home.
15. Keep the idea that there is no such thing as giving her too much attention.
16. Keep an attitude that other men's wives belong to them. To you, they are simply part of Heavenly Father's many artistic creations.
17. Ignore her petty faults. The only attribute that matters in eternity is her spirituality, her intent to become an eternal queen and priestess.
18. Be wary of office romances. Be polite and businesslike to your female coworkers. Keep personal matters out of office conversations.
19. Remember you have the second-best wife in the universe. (I have the best wife.)

Now swallow your male pride, and get busy using these tips. Start by telling your wife that Jim Raehl has a notion about his wife being the best. The reality is that your wife is the hottest big-bang universe-creation wife in the universe. (Except I stand by my statement, that Jerrie Lyn is the hottest wife in the universe.)