Young Women's & Personal Progress

Remember last post when I said I got a new calling?

Well, I'm the new Young Women's Secretary in our ward!

The Young Women program in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is for girls ages 12-18.  They have a program called Personal Progress where they complete value experiences and value projects, kind of like earning merit badges in scouts.  There are 8 values now (there used to be 7 when I was in YW's when I was a youth) -- they are: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue.  This Personal Progress program is to help young women increase their faith in Jesus Christ and personal righteousness.  I earned my Young Woman Recognition (for completing Personal Progress) just a few weeks before I turned 18, and I was proud of it!  I had only started when I was 16 since that was when I really started going to church and being involved.  And now since I am again in the Young Women's program, I want to work on my Personal Progress again and be a good example for the girls.

I'll be working on it, and you'll be hearing about it!  :)

-- Young Women Motto -- 

"Stand for Truth and Righteousness"

-- Young Women Theme --

"We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.  We will 'stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places' (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity, and

Virtue.

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation."

The Last Month

I guess it's time for me to play some famous blog catch-up.

Two days before Christmas I got to talk to my brother who is serving a mission in the Philippines for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was great to talk to him!  He sounds like he has an accent.  :)  Missionaries only get to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas.  He comes home in March -- So crazy!  It will be good to see him!  He has grown up a lot from what I can tell by his letters he writes each week.  It's nice to have someone else in my family who is as dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as I am.  I think we're going to end up getting close!  :)

We also got to talk with Adam's brother who is serving a mission in Portland, Oregon.  He comes home in July!  This is a crazy year for missionaries coming home.  It's going to be fun!

Speaking of this year...  2012 has some great things happening!  I got a new calling in church which I am totally excited about (but I can't say what just yet because I need to be sustained on Sunday first!).  We're thinking more about buying a house, which we may or may not do, but we would love to!  I'm being more involved with dancing -- My mom and I are taking a tap dance class this semester which I'm super excited about!  I'm also taking a ballet class this semester with the same teacher I've been taking other dance classes with, who I love!, and hope to keep working en pointe!  I'm also progressing at work in the mortgage biz.  I'm learning more and more every day and it's awesome, and fun!  And I'm sure there are tons of other things this year has in store, some things of which are probably not yet known!  But I'm way excited, and happy about life!

I took a ballet class at a studio this past semester and danced in a recital production of the Nutcracker!  En pointe!  It was challenging but super awesome and fun!!!  I miss it.  It's so crazy, I never would have thought I would be dancing en pointe for a performance.  I'm hoping to continue working on it and getting better!  I love dancing!  I can't believe it has taken me this long to figure out how much I like it.  Oh well, better late than never.  I figure I have more time for it now anyway and am more able to appreciate it.  :)

Adam and I took a trip to California when school got out for him in December.  It was our Christmas present to each other.  We got to see my aunt and uncle, and went to the Ghirardelli factory outlet.  Yum!  And we went to the Steelers game!  It was our first NFL game (for both of us).  Sadly though, the Steelers lost.  :(  But we had fun anyway!  We went to the LDS Oakland Temple (beautiful of course!) and also to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Surprisingly there was not even a hint of fog at the bridge!

Christmas was wonderful!  Adam and I opened stockings in the morning (since our present to each other was the Cali trip, including the Steelers game).  We went to church with Adam's family and my parents joined us too.  We had a nice Sacrament Meeting and then got to talk with Adam's brother, which I mentioned, and then opened a ton of presents with Adam's family.  Coming from a family that struggles to find one thing to get for each other (which we don't even bother with anymore) it's strange having 10 presents for each person to open, and we're all adults!  But it's super fun and I am not complaining at all!  Then we had dinner with my parents and my dad's parents who live in town and some of my dad's sisters who were there too.  It was a busy and nice Christmas, spending time with family and cherishing those relationships because those are the ones that last forever if we choose to live righteously and fulfill the ordinances required.  What a great way to remember Christ and all He has made possible for us.  :)

We went to Alabama with Adam's family to visit his dad's family.  It was a new experience for me!  I got to meet mostly everyone.  We spent time with Adam's grandmother, which was really good.  We even did some video recording of interviews with Adam's grandmother and her sisters and also Adam's dad's dad.  And we went to a bunch of grave sites where a lot of the family is buried.  We also went to the Blue Bell factory!  It was awesome and so yummy!  Unfortunately the tours were closed, probably for the holiday.  :(  But there was a window to see into the factory and we saw them putting together chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream!  We also went to the Talladega Super Speedway racetrack and took a tour on the track!  And got to take pictures in Victory Lane!  It was cool!  And we went to the Chick-fil-A bowl in Atlanta.  And celebrated 2012 twice!  (Once in Georgia and once in Alabama!)  You don't get to do that many times in a lifetime!

I'm learning how to use Photoshop!  We bought a Photoshop Elements and Premier (video editing) package on Black Friday for half off (yesss!).  It's been fun trying to learn how to use them.  I even created our own Christmas cards from scratch!!  I'm so proud of it!  But we didn't get to send them out at Christmas since it was so busy with our trips and everything.  I still want to send them out though because I can't let it go to waste!  And no, of course I don't want to wait a whole year to divulge my awesomeness with Photoshop!  I think I will still send them  :D

And of course, we squeezed in time for some shooting practice before school started back up again for Adam.  I did really well!  Better than him this time!  Hehe.

2012 has been good for us so far!  It's going to be a great year!  It always is.  :)

Attitude of Gratitude

This year Adam and I did our very own 24 Days of Gratitude, an idea I took from my friend Whitney.  She also does 25 Days of Christ during Christmas-time which we will be doing also, but it's not time for that just yet!  So for our 24 Days of Gratitude, every day from November 1st to Thanksgiving Day we told each other one thing we were grateful for.  And we even wrote them on a poster:

I must have written this in a frenzy - misspelled gratitude!

Here's our 2011 Gratitude list (in no order of importance):

• two working vehicles
• Kami
• pretty & fun music
• cold weather
• a job
• the Gospel!
• a body
• sports
• dance
• relaxing
• talents/skills
• technology
• family
• temple
• scriptures
• knowledge
• the Savior
• back-scratches
• Adam!
• water
• a home
• the right to bear arms
• freedom
• electric tools
• blankets
• the weekend
• money
• good food
• hot chocolate
• the Holy Ghost
• medicine
• leaders
• the prophet
• Pepsi
• a warm & comfy bed
• sleep
• to live in the USA
• revelation
• electricity
• good friends
• massages
• accessibility of things
• the plan of salvation
• happiness
• the earth
• life
• the ability to have children
• and all our many other blessings!

I hope this season of thanksgiving has inspired more thankfulness in us.  We have been given everything we have by God's hand.  He has created everything, and inspired all good things to come about.  He created us!  Both us as spirits and our bodies.  The only thing we have that is truly ours to give is our will.  I hope we can choose to be thankful to Him and happy for what we have.

Happy people aren't necessarily thankful, but thankful people are happy!

"Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God's love. This grateful awareness heightens our sensitivity to diving direction. When we communicate gratitude, we can be filled with the Spirit and connected to those around us and the Lord. Gratitude inspires happiness and carries divine influence."
Bonnie D. Parkin, "Gratitude: A Path to Happiness," Ensign, May 2007

13 True Things About Mormons

1.  Mormons are Christians.

2.  We believe in and worship Jesus the Christ spoken of in the Holy Bible and that He is the Son of God.

3.  The name "Mormon" is a nickname because of our belief in the Book of Mormon as additional scripture.

4.  The name of the church Mormons belong to is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

5.  We absolutely believe the Bible to be true and the word of God, as long as it is translated correctly.

6.  We believe that the Book of Mormon is also the word of God and is additional scripture written by Christ's people in the Americas and is a second witness of Jesus that He is the Christ.

7.  Joseph Smith was the first prophet of God in this last dispensation, or these latter-days, or this time when the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will not ever again be taken away from the earth.

8.  God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith as he was praying in a grove of trees about which church he should join.  They instructed him to join none of them and told him that the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be restored through him.

9.  We revere and respect and look up to Joseph Smith because of everything he has done and endured for the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

10.  We make sacred covenants in holy temples, and we perform these ordinances by proxy for those who have died without receiving them -- and they then have the opportunity to accept them or decline.

11.  We believe life does not end at the grave but that because of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection we are able to be resurrected (spirit and body reunited in a perfected form) and to live eternally.

12.  We believe that Jesus Christ suffered and atoned for our sins and that because of this we have the ability to repent and to come closer to God and to be able to be granted into His presence after this life.

13.  We believe families can be together forever, but only by being sealed together by someone who has God's authority on earth (the priesthood) in His holy temples.

Learn more here.

Does God have time for me?

I hear this certain commercial on the radio every once in a while and it just kills me every time I hear it.  The girl is asking things like, "Doesn't God have more important things to worry about my life and my worries?"  I really wish people wouldn't think this way, but there are so many who do.  The thing that makes me the most sad is that if someone has to ask that question, they don't understand what the whole point of life is.  God is the Father of our spirits, and His work and glory is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  His whole purpose is to help us make it back to Him to live with him and our loved ones forever.  He isn't up in the sky somewhere making the tides roll in and the wind blow and just watching us live our lives for entertainment.  He is listening to us and trying to prod us in the right directions and answering our pleadings.  We are His first priority!  And He provided a Savior for us, His Only Begotten Son in the flesh, even Jesus Christ, to come to the earth and show us the way to be able to return to our Father in heaven, and He suffered on our behalf so we would be able to do so.  Because if He did not, we would have no way to repent and be washed clean of and turn away from our sins, and since no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God we would be cast out forever, for eternity.  But He DID suffer and die and was resurrected for US, so we could have a way to overcome the natural man or evil in us and become saints and be able to be permitted into God's presence after this life.

God hears our prayers.  And He answers them.  Most often He answers in ways we don't expect.  He knows us, and He loves us.  He has provided this beautiful and resourceful earth to live on.  He has created these magnificent bodies of flesh and blood for our spirits to be housed in while we live our earthly lives.  He wants us all to make ourselves worthy so we can return to live with Him after this life on earth.  He has provided the way -- Jesus Christ.  We have to give the only thing we have to give, since everything we have been given has been by the hand of God -- and that is our will.  He has given us the ability to choose; and to be the most happy and to gain the most blessings and to be closest to God, we must choose Him and live His way.

So, does God have time for you?  The answer is yes.  His hand is always extended to you; He is just waiting for you to reach back to Him. 

Learn more.