Possibly the biggest benefit to me is to realize that I do make goals. I’ve always hated talks/lessons, whatever, about goals because they’ve never made any sense to me. I hate the thought of making a 5 year, 10 year, 20 year plan, etc.
But the truth is I do make goals, almost constantly, but I never write them down as goals. Sometimes I write them down as revelation, but mostly I don’t think about them much. I just do them when I get the prompting for as long as the Spirit tells me.
But the truth is I do make goals, almost constantly, but I never write them down as goals. Sometimes I write them down as revelation, but mostly I don’t think about them much. I just do them when I get the prompting for as long as the Spirit tells me.
BUT, I’m trying to be obedient and follow the prophet closely (big goal), so I had a prompting (little goal) that this would be something worth trying, so we posted our stuff on the window, according to the Children and Youth outline.
And it has helped. Like I said, the kids and I are realizing that the things we are already doing are goals. Almost all the kids are remembering their small, daily goals better. Ruby was already pretty well self-sufficient. Herbie and Linus do many things on their own, but sometimes need a little extra boost to remember a new goal. Moses sometimes needs a little extra boost to continue a goal and see it through, and Penelope and Archie are still working on both those.
Also, it helped me too. In putting up my post-it notes, I realized I’ve been eating 1 piece of fruit so successfully for so long (over 2 years!), that it was time to up my game to 2 pieces of fruit a day. To no one’s surprise, in the past two weeks, I’ve found I have more energy. I notice it especially when I’m running intervals.
I am grateful that he did what he didn’t want to do only because I asked.
Herbie and Penelope keep telling him he looks younger and handsome, but he doesn’t believe them. (And he’s not going to believe you either, so best not to mention it.)
It has been probably a year (since we were in Utah) since we’ve been to someone’s house for dinner and the kids stayed up late playing with their kids. It doesn’t quite seem like summer without a few of these.
They had a pool and basketball hoop and swings and a looong strip of land (like down one valley and up the next rise), four orchard trees wide, from which they sent us home with a bunch of apples and pears. We all loved it.
For this couple, he was one of the first baptisms in Portugal in the 70s, and almost immediately went on a mission (without ever having been to the temple). She also was a missionary in southern Italy... they met after their missions in the Bern Switzerland temple and the Spirit immediately told them that they were to marry.
It’s been a lifetime of living and working in small branches, long trips to the temple, raising kids in an hostile environment, not having the support of even their immediate family, etc.
Their son had gone on a mission and when he returned home, there’d been a new baptism in his home branch(?)... his wife.
We had a short period of a handful of missionaries condemning the members for lack faith (because of the lack of baptisms). Unfortunately, it really made me mad when I thought about it. If those missionaries had any understanding of what faith really is... they would have been honoring and learning all they could from these amazing members.
Anyway, back to the Italians... their two little girls only spoke Italian. Our kids could mostly understand them, but were powerless to answer them (and the Italian girls were too young to get the jist of Portuguese?).
The oldest little girl developed the impression that Ruby was really shy and didn’t like to talk, and we laughed to think that no one has ever thought that of Ruby ever.
In other events, Woo fasted for a personal concern last week, and as so often happens when God is blessing you, a bunch of humbling and trying things happened. I won’t mention any specifics here because they’re, well, humbling and trying.
Herbie chipped a tooth while surfing somehow. I’m not sure we have a kid that doesn’t have a chipped tooth now.
When I checked on him before going to bed myself, I saw that he’d already written a flowchart with a title—Dragon Fight, and some character names (Incendoroar, Salascorch) with some arrows and rough drawings.
He’s spent a lot of time on it this week, and also illustrations. He didn’t want to share it with his siblings (I think partly for fear they wouldn’t like it), but I encouraged him to read it out loud to all of them and they were all so admiring (especially his younger siblings), that I’m sure it boosted his confidence.
We checked the website again, and yep. There it was.
I finally gave up on trying to get to a printer and hand wrote all the kids’ blessings I have for them in the last 6 or 7 months. It took me two evenings. Penelope read one from April (not her birthday) that I wrote out for her the first evening and she said, “Didn’t you forget something in my blessing, Mom? The part where I’m supposed to prepare Archie for baptism?”
Archie is old enough to no longer be a terror to any puzzle set up... I mean, people can actually do a puzzle in his presence. But, he also isn't helpful on anything over 200 pieces. He was in the way when he tried. Luckily, our neighbors also gave us a couple of board games. They are complete jibberish to us. So much so that we can't even google if the game exists in English, but Archie has had plenty of fun making up his own games with the pieces.
That's our week. Hope yours was great!