Watching chick flicks seems to make most people believe each person has that one-and-only soul mate who completes them.
Apostles and students alike seem to disagree with that notion.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, in a 2009 CES Fireside, there is not just one right person for anyone, using his own life as an example.
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Brian Barzee, a senior from Kansas City, Mo., majoring in exercise science, said he does not believe there is only one individual person we have to be with.
“I feel that there’s multiple, numerous people that we can be compatible with, and it’s up to us to grow in the gospel in order to make things happen with whoever we end up with,” Barzee said.
President Uchtdorf continued to explain in his talk that though he does not believe in a one-and-only soulmate, your spouse is your soul mate once you get married.
[pullquote]”Once you commit to being married, your spouse becomes your soul mate, and it is your duty and responsibility to work every day to keep it that way,” Uchtdorf said. “Once you have committed, the search for a soul mate is over.”[/pullquote]
Barzee agrees that once you find someone and marry them, that person becomes your soulmate.
“There’s more than one, but we choose an individual person that makes us the best person we can be and who, through hard work and trials, eventually turns into our soul mate,” he said.
In his book, “Eternal Love,” President Boyd K. Packer said he does not believe in predestined love. He said as young people live the standards of the Church and pray, they can receive inspiration and wisdom from the Lord to recognize qualities upon which they could have a happy and successful marriage.
“You must do the choosing, rather than to seek for the one-and-only so-called soul mate, chosen for you by someone else and waiting for you,” President Packer said in his book. “You are to do the choosing. You must be wise beyond your years and humbly prayerful unless you choose amiss.”
Jamie Rhoten, a junior majoring in psychology, from Colorado Springs, Colo., agreed with President Packer, saying it is all about how you choose.
“I believe that just as in any opinion, there is good, better and best for you to progress toward exaltation.” Rhoten said. “I believe that the Lord will guide you to that best option if you are seeking spiritual guidance in dating.”
Mike Goodman, a professor of religion, said in an email the brethren have taught for years there is no soul mate for each person on earth.
“It has been stated that some patriarchal blessings intimate that there is a ‘one and only,'” he said. “Though I’ve never seen one such — if they exist — they must be for that individual only as the prophets have made it clear that the principle is not applicable generally.”
