New Year's Resolutions

Every new year I feel the need to write down new goals in an effort to continually try to improve myself and my family. This year I have just one goal.....to be more self reliant. Now, if you had asked me what it means to be self reliant just a few months ago, I would have said it means that you have lots of food storage to be able to feed your family in a time of hardship. But since taking my life skills class last semester, by eyes have been opened to a better perspective of what being self reliant really means. In this class I learned that being self reliant means "the ability, commitment, and effort to provide the necessities of life for self and family", and that there are six elements of self reliance, which include education, health, employment, home storage, finances, and spiritual strength. The reason the church teaches us to be self reliant in each of the areas is because when we become self reliant, we are better able to help and serve others around us. Elder Hales taught, 

"Our ability to serve is increased or diminished by the level of our self reliance. So in an effort to be of better service to those around me, I want to become more self reliant. So while I say I have one goal, it actually breaks down into several smaller goals. 

#1. Education--Since I am currently in school, I consider this to be fulfilling my goal of furthering my education. 

#2. Health--This year I want to exercise more, eat healthier, and lose 20 pounds. Yes, I know I need to lose more than 20 pounds, but I have to break it down into small goals so that I am not overwhelmed. I also have decided that I am not doing anything crazy anymore. No fad diets, no pills, no cutting out sugar or carbs or whatever completely. I am just going to exercise more, eat more fruits and vegetables, and try to lose 20 pounds.

#3. Employment--Not worried about that one right now, so I'm skipping it.

#4. Home storage--While this is a goal that I feel needs attention, I am putting it off until next year because of goal #5.

#5. Finances--After Aaron was released from being bishop last summer, we went through some hard trials. Not only was it hard to adjust to our new phase of life, we also got some bad news for Aaron's business. His biggest client wanted him to cut back on costs, or they were going to look for someone else. So, we had our very own financial crisis. I like to call it our "financial awakening." We realized that we were not going to be able to keep going on like we had been the last few years. See, we have been relying way too much on our credit cards the last few years thinking that all would be well when Aaron took over the business from his Dad, when he did last February. Well, turns out that's really never a good idea to count your chickens before they hatch. Bottom line....we were in a lot of debt, and had to make some changes. We went and talked with Aaron's sister, Amy, and her husband Shane, to get advice from them. Not only did they give us some great advice, but they gave us a wonderful book called Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. I had heard Dave Ramsey's name before, but that's about it. I knew nothing about him. So we started reading Dave's book and quickly realized this was just what we needed. In fact, we really needed this book 13 years ago when we first got married. I feel like our situation would be totally different if we had read this book back then. But, that's all water under the bridge. At least we have it now and we finally have hope of digging ourselves out of the hole we had put ourselves in. We sold our Honda Pilot and the four wheeler to get those payments off of us so we could free up some money for paying down our debt. Aaron sold a few guns and we quickly started "the baby steps". It feels so good to see our debt shrinking each month and our "debt snowball" gaining momentum. If all goes as planned, we will be able to say "WE'RE DEBT FREE!" (except for our house, which is baby step #6) by next summer. What I love most about Dave Ramsey is how everything he teaches is right in line with what the church teaches, he just goes into greater detail about it. It feels really good to be getting this part of our lives in control and in line with what we know the Lord wants us to do.

#6. Spiritual Strength--Another thing I learned from one of my classes last semester was how important the "little things" are in our lives. In my Book of Mormon class, my awesome instructor pointed out (as we were reading in Nephi) how Laman and Lemuel were a lot like many members of the church today. Laman and Lemuel did all of the big things, like leaving Jerusalem, going back for the plates, going to the promised land, etc, but they obviously didn't do the little things (such as praying, reading the scriptures, etc.) and this had a great impact on their spirituality. They didn't gain testimonies because they didn't pray and ask and seek the Lord as Nephi did. I know I have been guilty of neglecting the "little things" too. So my goal this year is to be better at the little things. I have a goal to pray and read my scriptures everyday. And I have another confession. I am not very good about fasting. Actually, I'm quite TERRIBLE at it. And from this class I also came to understand the many wonderful blessings I am missing out on because I don't make fasting a priority. So this year I am fasting. EVERY FAST SUNDAY. It's only 12 times a year. I can do that. And I will. I am going to do the little things to make sure my testimony grows stronger each day!

So, there are my goals for the new year. I know it's a lot, but I can do it! I will do it!