2016 The resolution: Focus on My Sphere

I spent New Year's Eve at work this year which would have been lame except someone hid a surprise for me in the break room. Evan has really been killing it in the romance department lately, he texted me at 11:30 and told me to go check the fridge. This bottle of martinellis and a note dripping with sap (just the way I like them) was attached. I didn't even know he knew I had a break room! It was a complete surprise and made my night. Anyway I was consumed with writing Care Plans and finding a bottle opener to share some bubbly with the staff and not thinking about my New Years goals. It's taken me a good month since then to really hash out the best direction for me this year. Slowly but surely, and guided by two main influences, the talk Yielding our Hearts to God and some thoughts  I had while watching this devotional from Elder and Sister Nelson, the direction I want to take this year came to me- "focus on my sphere". That's the best way I can describe it. I am continually trying to do good but sometimes that feels so vague and immeasurable. I kept wanting to do something big, think of some Kickstarter sensation or have my mommy blog go viral in a way that would help people grow closer to God, (this is pretty embarrassing to admit out loud ) and, I don't know, I had all these grandiose daydreams but then this quote had me choking on my plans:

"I have struggled to banish the mortal desire to have things my way, eventually realizing that my way is oh so lacking, limited, and inferior to the way of Jesus Christ. “His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come.” Can we love Jesus Christ and His way more than we love ourselves and our own agenda?"

It just didn't feel like His plan for me to do things that way, big and fancy and famous. And I absolutely believe it's His plan for some people to do it that way, just not me, not right now. Right now He told me instead of expanding your scope, you need to shrink it. Really dig deeper into what I've already given you. Instead of trying to reach more people, this year I'm focusing on reaching MY people MORE. So here's what that looks like for me in concrete actions:



1. deactivate my Facebook: for so many many reasons, two big ones being what a waste of time it can has become, and also that I have a hard time not being pulled or persuaded by things that I really don't believe or feel passionate about. In my life, I felt it was doing more harm than good and I felt an instant relief when I finally pulled the "deactivate" trigger. I don't think it's a permanent move, I'll be back, but for now I'm taking the time I used to invest there and putting it places that matter more.

2. Invest in the people around me: I've got a family full of people to love and a neighborhood full of friends to make. 2016 means more frequent date nights, more phone calls to my Grandparents, more inviting neighbors over for dinner, more staying in contact with old friends and after only one month of moving in this direction I'm excited for lots of upcoming plans.

3. Increase my efforts as a nursery leader- my calling right now in my ward is a nursery coordinator which basically means I spend the last 2 hours of church with all the babies and I LOVE it. I love babies (news to you?) and the more I've studied the scriptures and manuals and prayed about how to better help these little ones, my eyes have been opened to so many improvements I can make in my own efforts. Oh how God loves his little ones! More on this to come!

So uh...happy 2016! I'm finally so glad to be here.