One by one, the children all gave their consent. The next night, Dallin took Kristen to see son Dallin and others. "Kristen is so patient with all these preliminaries," Elder Oaks wrote. "I met her three weeks ago today and already love and feel sure of her. It seems impossible, but I have the confirmation, and so does she." He later explained, "We and our family members came to know one another, and by this means I was blessed with the approval of all six of our children before I proposed to Kristen."

On Saturday, July 29, [2000], Dallin and Kristen had dinner at the Homestead in Midway, Utah. He had brought flowers for the occasion. Afterwards, "on the beautiful grounds," he wrote, "I told her I loved her and asked her to marry me. She told me of her love for me and said 'yes.'" There was no doubt in either of their minds. "We both had a profound feeling of peace and well-being in all of this," he affirmed in his journal. The next morning, he phoned his children to tell them the news. "All were thrilled," he wrote.

Kristen later wrote this revealing insight. "How does one move from living for one to being the matriarch of a tribe? Serving in the Church, coming from a very loving family, and working a job that demanded I be flexible saved me. Being a primary president, young women leader, attending all those homemaking meetings, multiple sleepovers with my nieces and nephews, and having a job that required me to work with large numbers of people was almost like being in a flight simulator to prepare for married life."

On Friday, August 25, 2000, at 10:30 a.m., in the presence of some sixty friends and family members, Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Sister Kristen M. McMain were married in the Salt Lake Temple by President Gordon B. Hinckley. Elder Ballard felt "honored to have been the matchmaker for Dallin and for Kristen," he later said. "When they had their wedding dinner, they invited me and gave me an award, 'the finder's fee,' of those little chocolate gold coins."

Elder Oaks had been married to June Dixon Oaks, his first wife, for 46 years, but only 14 of those years were during his service as a general authority. Sister Kristen M. Oaks would now be his wife for most of his service in the senior quorums of the Church. After two years of being single, he felt greatly blessed to have her as his companion. "She came into the marriage with many gifts and experiences," he later reflected. "Though exposed to Church teachings through primary attendance in her childhood, she was a convert in her early twenties. She brought into the marriage the fervent testimony of a convert and the marvelous experience of a full-time missionary in a foreign land, Sendai, Japan, in her late twenties. She was single until her fifties. From these experiences, she has given me many insights that have blessed my ministry as a general authority. Her mothering instincts and experience were immediately felt throughout the Oaks family, which then consisted of six children and their spouses, 23 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. As a gifted teacher, speaker, and writer, she has been a great counselor and helper in my ministry. She was truly the ideal woman to join our family and stand beside me in the great responsibilities of my calling."

This is a question we wrestle with all of our life. It's well to remember that the scriptures teach us that inspiration comes in the still, small voice. It doesn't come in the urgent impulses of doing what we want to do and reaching out in bias for a confirmation to our personal opinion. I have found it helpful to use that test of bias when I'm trying to sort out the difference between a desire to be confirmed in what I want to do already and what the Lord may want me to do. And if I get an impression to do something I don't want to do, I think that's a lot more authentic than to get or to report an impression that I've been confirmed in what I wanted to do anyway.

Forty years ago, President Ezra Taft Benson taught that "every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself." I believe our attitude toward and use of the family proclamation is one of those tests for this generation. I pray for all Latter-day Saints to stand firm in that test.