The Pleasure of Married Life

Many around us disparage marriage and family life with all the talk of the downsides -- all the work, toil, struggle and pain involved in being married, staying married, and rearing children. Having been through the first year of marriage with my beautiful wife Amber -- I can say that we, like most couples, struggled a lot in our first year of marriage. But I personally have felt a lot more fulfilled and purposeful in my life than I have felt in a long time, (since my mission). I think as we have the tendency to disparage marriage and family, we forget that true happiness comes from our relationship with our families and our struggle and toil in serving them. Our Father in Heaven gave us struggles and commanded us to for family units because ultimately he wants us to have joy in life -- "... and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25).