On Marriage

• Details
• Written by Spencer W. Kimball

Address Delivered To Missionaries By Elder Spencer W. Kimball
January 2, 1959

Now the most important thing of all in your life—that which will have the greatest bearing on what you are going to be tomorrow, on your activities, your attitudes, your eventual destiny, is your one decision you make that moonlit night when you ask that individual to be your companion for life. That's the most important decision of your entire life. It isn't where you are going to school, or what lessons you are going to study, or what your major is, or how you are going to make your living. These are incidental and nothing compared with the important decision that you make when you ask someone to he your companion for eternity.

Once in a while we have returned missionaries who marry out of the temple and out of the Church. It is impossible to understand, but it happens. Each one of you should make up his mind right now, "Here's one who will never marry unless it is in the Temple of God to a righteous individual who will be better than myself and stimulate me to the highest things." We need that kind of determination; then we really know that every year is our destiny. Much is tied up in that one decision, Don't forget that.

You can't go home, brethren, and meet a flossy; you sisters can't go home and date some man who thinks that maybe someday he will be worthy to go to the Temple. You go home and find a person that will stimulate you, one that will keep you on your toes, one that will make you better than you are—never anyone that will let you relax. I would never be in the Council of the Twelve today if I had married some of the girls that I have .known. Sister Kimball kept me growing and never let me be satisfied with mediocrity. It's the same way with you men and girls. Now don't forget that.

Now, just a few rather specific things; when you go home, start to live the day that you get home. Go right on and live if you are not already living! Don't you wait until your military service is over or until your education is completed to get married. Every one of you who receives an honorable release from his or her mission is old enough to he married. You're old enough that day—even if you have a lot of growing and developing to do. Most of you will need to make new contacts. You are not going home just to have a good time. We still have a wonderful time in our advanced ages; we're always going to have. Sister Kimball and I still like to dance. We even have the TV on sometimes and dance in our own room. At our venerable age we still like to dance and we like to go to shows—we never get to, but we like to go.

When you go out there and start to look the field over, there are wonderful young women and young men in the Church—tens of thousands. There is no excuse for any man to take a second rate girl, because there are so many lovely girls in this Church. Go all over this Church if you need to, to find the girl that is better than you are. Find her, and when you date her, you date her just for one date. The first time, if she measures up, invite her again. If she measures up again, you are old enough to go steady.

It is presumed that you have all had many dates with many girls and many boys in the years before your missions, so you all know what you are looking for, don't you? If you don't, there is something wrong. You know what you are looking for, you are looking for a mother for your children, for a wife for eternity. You are not looking for a girl just to have fun with, so analyze these girls. That is what courtship is for, so you can analyze them. Take them out; take them to Church, take them for a ride, take them to a show, a dance, and talk about everything in the world that's important—families, standards, activities, family prayers, and all those things. If you are both smart, you are both appraising and weighing all the time.