How Do I Know?

The definition of an engagement is an agreement to be married. It is a promise to meet or be present at a particular place and time where you are asked to be married. We all know the classic engagement. The perfect set up, the perfect guy, the perfect ring, and the words “Will you marry me”. Everyone looks forward to this perfect day. However, engagements aren’t how they used to be. 

Today engagements have become more of a social media event. We are so focused on the pictures, the people that are there, and how the engagement looks that we don’t put much thought into the actual engagement. But how do you know they are the one?

Getting engaged is probably the most important decision you will make in your life. President Gordan B. Hinkley said “ This will be the most important decision of your life, the individual whom you marry.” We must include the Lord when it comes to us making the decision on who to marry. 

When you are dating someone and it is getting more serious, couples who have a relationship that is progressing from a friendship to steady dating eventually will come to a crossroad. Your relationship can either end in an engagement, continuing steady dating, or it can come to an end. 

In Spencer W. Kimball's statement “Finding the Right One”. He talks about how there is likely not just one person that we are meant to marry. It is so important to know that there are multiple people that we are meant to marry in this life. 

A lot of people have the question on how early is too early for marriage? In “Making a Decision at the Appropriate Time” by President Harold B. Lee says, “I am not trying to urge you younger men to marry too early. I think therein is one of the hazards of today’s living. We don’t want a young man to think of marriage until he is able to take care of a family, to have an institution of his own, to be independent. He must make sure that he has found the girl of his choice, they have gone together long enough that they know each other, and that they know each other’s faults and they still love each other. I have said to the mission presidents (some of whom have been reported to us as saying to missionaries, ‘Now, if you are not married in six months, you are a failure as a missionary’), ‘Don’t you ever say that to one of your missionaries. Maybe in six months they will not have found a wife; and if they take you seriously, they may rush into a marriage that will be wrong for them.’“Please don’t misunderstand what we are saying; but, brethren, think more seriously about the obligations of marriage for those who bear the holy priesthood at a time when marriage should be the expectation of every man who understands the responsibility; for remember, brethren, that only those who enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage in the temple for time and eternity, only those will have the exaltation in the celestial kingdom. That is what the Lord tells us” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1973, 120; or Ensign, Jan. 1974, 100).

Getting engaged and finding the right person is something everyone looks forward to. It is important that we don’t just make it about sharing it all over social media, but making it more personal and sacred with the person you choose to spend the rest of your life with. 

References
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (n.d.). Mate Selection. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mate-selection?lang=eng&id=title25#title25