Your Personal Best

Yes, it's that time of year again to set some goals.  Have you set up lofty ones you will fail at, or have you given up entirely?  I was in the latter camp until this year.

When I ran cross country and track in high school, there were other runners who were a lot faster than I was.  I learned a lot of things with the long distance running, though, and one of those was to not compare myself against others, but to compare my running times against my previous running times.  It was called getting your "personal best".

So what is my personal best?  What is yours?

Without a benchmark like this, you don't know if you're gaining or losing ground with whatever it is you are doing.

For me?  It comes from a source I used long ago, and am starting to re-use again.  I'm wondering if more widows should do the same?  Should we create a system to track our personal best and set goals?

I'm thinking yes.

The source I am using?  The Young Women Personal Progress for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Who says it's only for Young Women?

I sat down on Sunday to look over the Young Women Personal Progress Booklet.  I purchased it, along with a small, matching journal, at the Church's Distribution Center in Mesa.  You might, however, be able to get one free through your Bishop.

The Church also has this one online:  Young Women Personal Progress and when you log in using your lds.org account, it becomes interactive, meaning you can actually enter things in there and save them.

The first question is:  do we stick with the same Young Women Values or do we change a few things to make it more pertinent to widows?

Here were my thoughts:

Faith
Divine Nature
Eternal Nature of Marriage
Individual Worth
Knowledge
Good Works
Enduring Enjoying To The End

I'm still working on this, but I would love to hear from anyone else with ideas and suggestions.

Three Choices

I love it when I'm on the same page as the Bishopric in my Ward.  This talk was profiled in one of the talks in Sacrament Meeting yesterday.

Three Choices by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, October 2003 Conference.

It's never too late to make changes in your life.

What If?

This morning, while waiting for Sacrament Meeting to start, I read from the Book of Mormon.  In my personal reading, I've started 2nd Nephi.

I read this (2nd Nephi 1:8-10

"8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

 9 Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.

 10 But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of the creation of the earth, and all men, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the world; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them."

I wondered what if the descendants of Lehi, all of them, had remained righteous?  Would the "New World" as the Americas were called ever been discovered?  Would Christopher Columbus had been able to find the Americas?  Would the pilgrims have known about the Americas to leave Europe in search of religious freedom?  Would there have been a Trail of Tears?

Then the answer came.  Sometimes the question "what if?" is good for an increase in knowledge and understanding.  In fact, it's great if you are looking to innovate something for the future.

But pondering "what if?" about the past?  It may be interesting and even educational, but to dwell on it serves no purpose as it will not change how things are now.

YOUR Happily Ever After

For the full talk: Your Happily Ever After

I would invite you to fully study this talk.

If you are grieving and think you'll never feel happy again, "hold on, the light will come". Many thanks to Michael McLean for that song.

Realizing Your Dreams

I don't have BYU TV (it's too expensive for me), so I was looking at their web site and found a television series that peaked my interest. It's called See The Good and I've only watched one episode on it, but it was a good one.

Here's the link to the episode: Realizing Your Dreams

What are your dreams? What did you want to be as a child, and has that dream come to fruition? This video is a must see, but not embed friendly, so click on the link above to view the video.

Potential

We all have potential. What is yours? This is part of another phenomenal talk from TOFW.

Chastening

If you saw the video in the last post, you saw a reference to Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk, "As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten". Here is the link to the talk: Elder D. Todd Christofferson

This is definitely the thing I need to be working on. Why? because it's the only way to truly have that relationship with the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Psalms 25:9: The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.

By the way, I've personally met Elder Christofferson (while he was serving in the Seventy) and this is a truly humble man. He lives what he preaches.