Montana Grandma

Just like everyone else I have been thinking about the new year and what it might hold for my family and what I need to do this year to improve and to do differently. I get an email every week from this website. I was catching up on it today and a couple of the ideas they had really got me thinking...

...Create a personal sanctuary: Everyone needs a space of their own in which they can relax and refresh. It should be a room or even a corner of a room that is your own personal escape. It might be a big comfy chair for reading or even the bathtub for soaking in a nice bubble bath. It should be an area you can retreat to and your family and friends must respect your right to privacy to enjoy sometime with just yourself. Make sure you love it and that it is comfortable--big comfy pillows and throws, pictures and paintings, plant life, and some candles.

...Live simply, be frugal and maybe even become a minimalist: It simply comes down to the rule 'don't let your stuff own you.' How much stuff does one family or one person need or use? Do you have too much stuff? Do your life, mind, and space feel cluttered? Are you living outside your means because you buy too much? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, re- evaluate all the stuff cluttering your life that is preventing you from living a simple life.

Especially the second one. I have moments when I feel that things around me are so cluttered that I am suffocating. I really need to work on that one. Especially in the world today - with the economy the way it is and the fear that brings out in me I need to learn how to live frugally and how to get by with less. Sometimes I bring "things" into my life thinking that will fill the void I sometimes feel, when in reality it doesn't. It just adds to the feelings of having things cluttered.

So this year I think my motto is going to be SIMPLIFY. I'm not sure what that will end up looking like but I think I like the challenge.

I also received an email yesterday from the Helena early morning Seminary director. He included the following about New Years goals. I've thought alot about it since yesterday and wonder if I don't put enough faith in the desires of my heart sometimes...

New Year’s Resolutions
Elder Boyd K. Packer
MIA Conference 1971

A few years ago Donna and I attended a holiday dinner at the home of one of our beloved friends. It was a New Years Eve party. Our host had an activity for the evening. He read a few verses of scripture and then read at some length from a quotation from Heber C. Kimball, a member of the First Presidency during his life. I’ll quote just one sentence from his quotation from President Kimball.

“I have often said, “President Kimball says, “you may write blessings for yourselves and insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

Our host gave us a sheet of paper and an envelope and suggested we write upon the paper the things we hoped to achieve during the new year. And then he repeated again the quotation from Brother Kimball, “you may write blessings for yourselves. Insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

After we had written our goals on the paper we were asked to seal the envelope and put our name on it. “I will take these to the bank and put them in the vault,” he said. “And a year from now we’ll meet again and have a dinner and I’ll deliver them to you. And we will tell, if we wish, how nearly we have achieved our goals.”

We thoughtfully set our goals that night and sealed them up and they were delivered to the vault to lay silent for one full year. Six things were on my list, each relating to the blessing for someone dear. Each seemed near impossible. One for instance related to a sister and a temple marriage. Worthiness was not a problem, it was her body. So crippled with disease that a temple session was just out of the question. Or was it?

A year went by; the envelopes were delivered to us again. During the year with those goals in mind we had prayed now and then and little opportunities or advantages came by, things that would have gone unnoticed without our having set the goal. We were able to move forward first with one goal and then another. There came that endowment session in the temple, there came that sealing ordinance.

Four other things happened, but the sixth wouldn’t come to pass. It was on New Years Eve that I received a call from across the country. The sixth thing that I had written related to a problem of a friend. It just seemed to defy solution. On New Years Eve that telephone call came. Excitedly he told me that his problem had been solved. He knew nothing of this list of goals, our goals had been written, we had set our aim and they had come to pass.

Let me repeat again, “You may write blessings for yourselves and insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

Seems somewhat impossible...but with God nothing is impossible!

Have a happy day!