Themes

As the new year dawns, everyone reflects on the past and makes resolutions on how to improve themselves, or dreams they want to see come to fruition that following year. I was recently reading a friends blog and she mentioned a family theme, something the whole family wants to concentrate on for the entire year. I thought this was a great idea, so I decided to come up with our own family theme, something for us to focus on through out the year, something for us to discuss at FHE and work on during the week. My friends theme is "Come What May and Love It" from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's Oct. 2008 General Conference talk. While I could have easily piggy backed off her and used the same thing I thought this might have been more fitting for our family last year. As I sat pondering what would help our family this year I realized it was right in front of me (literally). A few years ago for an R.S activity, my mom's ward made tiles with vinyl quotes on them, she made one for me. I have this tile displayed prominently in my home, this is what it reads, "In all living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed not just endured." This is from a talk Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley gave to the Young Women in the April 1996 General Conference. I thought this would be perfect for our family right now, help us to focus on enjoying life not just enduring it. Most days, it feels like we're barely doing enough to keep our head above the water. It's been a struggle to adjust to having 2 infants in our home and when most people ask how we're doing, my answer is "we're surviving". I don't want to just be "surviving" I want to start thriving, and to do that I [we] need to start to enjoy this time, especially since it wont last long. Before we know it these little guys with be full fledged toddlers running all over the place, so I need to enjoy these moments now. As I was researching this theme, I came across another great article from the Ensign that emphasizes this theme. It's called "Enjoy It!" by Geraldine Bangerter. In this article she talks about when her husband was called to be the Mission President for the Brazilian Mission and how she overcame her struggles with the adjustment in lifestyle. Here's an excerpt from the article. . .

". . . Grant took me back inside. He put both hands on my shoulders, looked straight into my eyes, and said, “I know that you are experiencing some hardships, but one of the exciting parts of going to a new country is learning the language. You’ll soon learn it! We’ll find a vacuum and get the washer fixed. Someday, when we go back to the United States, you’ll want to tell people about your interesting times here. And when you do, you and they will laugh about your challenges. Why wait until then to enjoy it? Enjoy it now!”
I felt as if someone had raised the curtain on the second act of a play. I caught the wisdom of my husband’s words, and I began to laugh. “You’re right,” I said. “We should enjoy it now!” "

I've come up with 11 things that we're going to try to enjoy more (this month we're going to focus on the theme itself and then in February we'll start with our sub themes). We haven't decided what order to do these sub themes in (that's the topic of next Mondays FHE) but here they are. . .

We're going to find enjoyment in. . .

Family
Friends
Service
Gospel (general)
Outdoors/nature
Work
Talents
Ourselves
Our community
Christ
Scriptures

Another theme I'd like to talk about is our theme for R.S. this year. Our ward's theme is "What Matter's Most: SIMPLIFY" With each of the letters from simplify standing for something that well focus on each month.

Stillness

Integrity

Mercy

Prune

Let Go

Impossible

Fortify

You

I will try to post my experiences and progress as I [we] focus on these themes and become closer to each other and to the people that our Heavenly Father wants us to be.