Faith, Planning and Other Extreme Sports

You all know how much I love stories, so I'm going to start off with a story about faith, and then the bulk of my message.  First off, go ahead and look at the first photo.  Take a look just to the right of the big lake in the middle. See that street called Calmwater Cv.? Okay, remember that. It's important. And don't look at
the other pictures yet. It kills the suspense.

So, our story begins with a daily planning session at the end of companion study time.  We were about to head out the door, and decided to prayerfully consider where to go tracting later in the day.   So we pull up this map, and narrow things down a little bit, and both my companion and I felt impressed that we should be in Libertyville, above one main road, and west of the river here. Sweet, good plan. We each took a copy of the map and started praying over each of the streets individually to see if we felt a particular impression with any of them. As we came back together in a few minutes, we had a couple of streets different from each other, but the one we both agreed on was Calmwater Cv. (please refer to the street I had you find earlier) and it was decided that we would start there, and work our way west of that street.

Fast forward to a few hours later, our appointed tracting hour for the day, and we make our way to that neighborhood, turn down the connecting street, and promptly see a dead end. Not just a dead end, but a dead end with a wall, and woods behind it.

At this point we are sore confused, and go back to our paper map instead of the digital layout we had.

Lo and behold, there is no street in existence called Calmwater Cv. nor is there even a street with a different name there.          

At this point we have no idea what to do, so naturally, we pray. With our car pointed at this dead end wall, we bowed our heads and prayed.  When we finished the prayer, we both had a distinct impression of, 'I told you to go there, didn't I? So go!' So, with the sun far gone, no idea what was ahead of us, we got out of the car, donned scarves and gloves, and went. We spent about twenty minutes stumbling through those woods looking for who knows what, and found pretty much nothing.  Cold, wet, and more confused than before, we got back in the car and left. We weren't sure what it meant, or why we needed to do it, but we did.

The next day, we got up and headed out for the day. We had some time before our scheduled service project for the day, so we decided to tract. We joked a little bit about tracting to houses instead of trees, but underneath the laughter we both knew there must have been some reason for the experience. As we spent less than 20 minutes knocking on doors, we placed 2 copies of the Book of Mormon, left our
number with 3 people, and had one religious discussion in the front room of a home. Mind you, this may not seem like much, but in our area, that's about a week put together. As we got back in the car to go to our next activity, we were walking on air.

Sometimes, to know if you REALLY trust Him, The Lord will ask you to tract in Calmwater Cv., just to see if you do it. Can I give you some advice? Walk through the woods for a few minutes. It's worth the cold
toes.

On to the other portion of my post. This week there has been a lot of discussion in the ward about the idea of creating Ward and Family Plans for the year, and I love the idea, so here goes!

Family (or personal) Plan for 2014

Do you have one?

"I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principle of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life." Elder M. Russell Ballard

This is step 1. 

Really simple, just as essential. When we need improvement in our lives, and we all do, there has to be some work on our part to get there. When the Brother of Jared had a problem, The Lord told him to make a plan, work on it, and THEN come back for some divine help. He wants to help us with all of our problems, but more importantly He wants us to grow from them, and growing pains are part of the plan. In Doctrine and Covenants section 9 it says "...you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong..."  When we make plans ourselves and then consult with The Lord about whether it is right, it is in accordance with the order we have been taught.

Just make some goals. If you don't read anything else in this entire email, I hope you read this. My invitation to you is going to be the same that we are extending to the ward that we are currently serving in.

My invitation to you is to make a Gospel Plan for your family, (or yourself) and the theme is this. "In 2014, I (we) will come closer unto Christ by..." And then I would suggest making specific goals in these four categories:

Temple and Family History Work- 

make reasonable goals based on your current standing. If you don't have a temple recommend, work towards that.  If you go once a year, up it to once a month.  If you don't know anything about Family History, learn about your grandparents first. If you index 5 names a month, make it 10. Wherever you are on the path, make your goal reasonable for your position. Don't make a goal based on what "Jonny Down-the-road" is doing lately. Make it personal.

Temporal Well-being- 

same concept as before, reasonable goals based on where you are, and what your needs are. If you exercise all the time but eat terribly, work on better menu choices. If you're spending too much time on work and not enough with your family, take a walk with the kids once a week, or go on a date with your husband/ wife every Friday.

Gospel Learning- 

can you guess what the outline is? You got it!  Reasonable and specific goals for where you are at now. If you want to learn more about the life of Christ, read chapters of the New Testament. If you are struggling to know how the Gospel is part of your everyday life, study the words of modern-day prophets in The Ensign or General Conference addresses.

And finally, Missionary Work- 

missionary work is going to be different for everyone. If you are outgoing and bold, make a goal to give away a Book of Mormon once a month. If that thought scares you, make a plan to slip the Church into a regular conversation this week, i.e.: "I learned something really interesting about my Church the other day, did you know...(insert intriguing fact about the Church)" Everyone is at a different place, but everyone has some way they can participate in missionary work. You just have to look for it.

Is it written down?

President Monson said it best when talking about goals and planning. He said,
"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates."  President Thomas S. Monson

Imagine with me for a minute. Let's say you are training for a marathon, so you have a goal to run everyday.  So everyday you go running, and you come home one day to write down how the run was. Are you going to write down that today's run was better than yesterday's because you saw 4 more butterflies today? No. That is not an accurate way to track your improvement while training. You would write down how far you ran, how long it took you, and most importantly, how you are going to do better the next day. Are you going to run 10 miles instead of 8, or simply try and run 8 miles in 5 less minutes than before?

Mind you, that was one example, but it can be directly applied to all of these principles. Start with a goal, and make it specific. Write down the plan for how you are going to accomplish it, and check it regularly. When you are following the plan, or taking action, write that down too. How was it better than before? WAS it better than before? Update the goal to do more next time, and repeat the process.  Goals and planning aren't a 'One-Hit Wonder' kind of activity. They require time, accountability, and changes along the way.

Are you following it?

So you have a plan for yourself this year, great! Is it like your resolutions for last year? 'I worked out for the first SIX days of January!' Come on folks, let's get real.

The biggest problem with making plans or goals, is the follow through!  If you shoot a 3--pointer and stop halfway, it falls short. Without a back swing, you'll never make it to the green. A home-run is impossible without the follow through. Preach My Gospel is almost certainly my favorite book in the world, and guess what, it says something about this. (The wording has been adjusted slightly for my own purposes.)

"...Making a plan...without...DOING it...is like beginning a journey without finishing it or buying a ticket to a concert without going into the theater. Without the completed action, the...plan...is hollow.

Genuine...commitment...is best demonstrated by righteous actions over a period of time..."

How powerful is that? A council of The Lord's prophets wrote this.  Don't you think we should probably pay attention to it? Setting goals, making plans, saying 'I will...' is great, but it's not the end result. It's the first step in the journey. Just as baptism is not the destination. Enduring to the end is important. When you make a plan, plan to follow up with it regularly. Check on yourself once a month, more if needs be. If you know you aren't going to keep yourself in check, (guilty here) have someone else remind you.

This may seem trivial, and even boring, but let me tell you, it matters. When you plan and prepare yourself, opportunities arise that you couldn't imagine. The first step of any good structure is the plan. The same is true of our lives. If we want structure and stability, the best way to get it, is to plan to have it in the first place. Stability means something different for every person. What seems stable to you may look like a dangerous balancing act to another, while you feel their structure holds them down too much. Make your structure yours. I can promise you that as we plan the way The Lord would have us do it, and put all of our efforts into accomplishing those goals, we will be granted all righteous desires. I know that to be true, and I know you can too.

I love you.
Your Heavenly Father loves you.
Plan for success!


-Elder Logan Gifford

P.S. Here are some pictures of what cold can do: