2013 Goals

I like to make sure that I set goals within different areas of my life. I consider myself a list-making, goal-setting, organized person. So at the end of each year, I think hard on my life and the goals I've accomplished, and the areas I need to improve upon, and then I make lists accordintly. I gave a talk in the Stanley branch at the end of December about goal-making, and this is my talk:

"Since we are at the closing of 2012, and a new year is dawning, it’s the time of year when I think about goal setting. Ever since I was a young child, I was taught to make goals and to work towards those goals. I was looking in an old journal of mine, where it was recorded when I was 3 ½ years old that my goals for the new year were: write my first name, attend swimming lessons, count to 20, memorize 1^st article of faith, and learn the alphabet song. At the beginning of each year we all had to pick 5 goals to work on throughout the year. My dad followed the pursuit of excellence program, and had us choose goals within the categories of: physical, spiritual, social, intellectual, and character-building. 

"I follow that same tradition that my dad instilled in me during my youth, and our family now makes goals at the start of each new year at Family Home Evening. We talk about goals, and how they help us work towards bettering ourselves. For the last two years, I’ve had the boys pick their own goals in 3 categories that I thought they needed more work in: Love at Home, Respect at School, and Reverence at Church. Josh and I use different categories, like: financial, physical, spiritual, service, etc. When we have all finished making our goals, I write them all down on dry-erase boards and post them on the fridge for the year, so there’s a constant visible reminder of what we are all working on. After a while, we don’t even see them on the fridge anymore, but when visitors come to our house, it’s what they always see and they ask us about them, and I love the reminders from outside sources to help us stay on track for working towards completing our goals. 

"I raise my children to be independent, and while they are under my care, I want to instill in them the importance of learning and completing tasks on their own. Pres. David O McKay taught: 'The home is the first and most effective place for children to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self-control; the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other success can compensate for failure in the home.'

"Today I want to share with you some of our family’s goals, and how they follow, and are in line with, this statement from the family proclamation: 'Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.' I’m going to talk about each of these individual principles and how they’ve been applied into our family life and the goals that we’ve set.

"FAITH. One of the goal-setting categories for the boys is “Reverence at Church”. We’ve taught our boys that church attendance is important, and we bring our children to worship at church with us each Sunday. There were multiple times when the boys were younger that I didn’t even want to go to church because I felt like it was more of a WWF fight with them to keep them quiet during Sacrament meeting than a religious time of spiritual upliftment. I remember one Sunday coming home from church feeling exhausted and asking Josh what we should do…the boys were so noisy and naughty and had been such a disruption and I was very upset. He thought I should ask Sister Jean Hobbs what she did to help her kids be reverent. Sister Hobbs is a woman from our ward who raised 8 kids and they were always so quiet and listened and were model citizens on the church bench during Sacrament Meeting. So I did just that. And when I asked her for her opinion on what she thought I should do, she laughed! She couldn’t believe I was asking her for her thoughts, but her reply was something like “Just keep going to church, it’ll get better”. Children learn in different ways, and one of those ways is repetition. If I just kept going to church, even though it was almost always a struggle, my children would learn that church attendance is important. I made a goal to keep going to church, and just as Sister Hobbs said, being there with the kids did improve! As the boys have gotten older, I felt that it was important for them to set their own goals and work towards learning to be more reverent. This is what the boys’ 2012 reverence at church goals were: Jonah—use whisper voice at church, Micah—don’t goof off at church, Ammon—don’t play with brothers at church. And I am happy to report that the boys did SOOO much better this year showing reverence during Sacrament Meeting! 

"PRAYER. Every day at dinner, and once a week at Family Home Evening, we have family prayer. At mealtime, I ask for volunteers who’d like to say the prayer, and I almost always have to make a choice since several raise their hands each time. It’s nice to know that my boys are eager to say prayers, and I love to hear them say the prayer, especially Kanyon, our youngest. He says he’s thankful for snow even during the summer, he says he’s thankful for the trampoline even in the winter, and he say he’s thankful for the missionaries who come eat with us—even when they’re not there. He accidentally substitutes in the words “thankful for” instead of “please bless”, so he will say “Thankful for dad drive home safe, thankful for grandma to be healthy”, etc. At Family Home Evening, either Josh or I say the prayer. And when Josh isn’t gone to School Board Meetings, and he’s there to say the prayer, I love listening to him pray too. I love hearing the heartfelt words he says to our Heavenly Father, and I’m grateful for the example he is to our sons.

"REPENTANCE & FORGIVENESS.  Sometimes I feel like I fail as a mother, because no matter how much I teach them and tell them what’s right and wrong, they still choose the wrong…and I think to myself “where did I go wrong”. But I am learning that no matter how much I teach and tell them what is right, they still have their agency to choose; it is a gift from God to all of us. Even though I give them consequences and show them the error of their ways when they make wrong choices, they occasionally make the exact same wrong choices again and again. I know that I cannot force them to do what’s right, but I can always help them and teach them about repentance and forgiveness and express my love for them even whey they choose the wrong. This goes hand in hand with the next principle…

"LOVE. Regardless of what decisions my boys make, I will always love them. I love them for the good choices they make, and for trying to improve themselves. I am proud of Ammon for choosing to receive the priesthood and for being worthy to have it. I am proud of Jonah and Micah for choosing to be baptized, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. I am proud of Kanyon for coming to church and listening to his teachers. I love them despite the bad choices they make, because I know their potential. I still love Ammon when he sasses me, I still love Jonah and Micah when their teacher reports to me that they’re not following all the school rules, and I still love Kanyon when he bangs his head and cries because he doesn’t want to go to church. The most important thing we can ever do as parents is to love our children, and let them know that we do, too. In the “Love at Home” goal category, each one of them had identical goals: don’t be physically mean to brothers. My hope was that they would learn to show more love towards their brothers. I know that they are all boys, and boys usually show more physical aggression than girls, but I feel that it’s important for them to learn to hurt less, and to help more. All 3 of the boys are still working on this specific goal!

"RESPECT. This is a principle that is becoming more rare as the world is becoming more selfish and disrespectful. As a teacher, I see disrespect at such a young age, even from kindergartners. So, I feel that it is very important to teach to my own children that listening and obeying teachers and leaders is respectful. Another of the goal-setting categories for my boys is “ Respect at School”. Jonah’s goal in that category was: “don’t get in trouble with the principal at school”. He made that a goal because several of his classmates have had to, and he didn’t want to be in trouble like he’s seen them be. He knew that by showing disrespect, the principal’s office is a natural consequence at school. Respect goes beyond the school of course, and I hope that the respect they learn to have at school will infiltrate into the other areas of their life.

"COMPASSION. One of our family goals we are all working on this year is to do service for someone else every day. At the start of the year, I got little notebooks for every member of our family, and every day at dinner, we talk about what service we did for others that day. The rule is that no 2 services can be the same in one week. I record what they did in each of their service journals. It worked really well for about 3 months, and then there was a week when we didn’t have dinner together for whatever reason, and unfortunately the habit of recording the service stopped. I feel it is an important principle that the Savior lived and taught, and that we should emulate that aspect in our lives as well. Sometimes when Josh goes to do an Elders Quorum service project, he takes the boys with him. When I bake cookies to a neighbor, I take the boys with me to help deliver them. I want them to see that service and love are not only important to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but that they are to Josh and I, too.

"WORK. My husband is a true believer and exemplar of this principle. He was taught to work at a very young age on the ranch, and working hard is ingrained in his blood now. Each of our sons is responsible for indoor and outdoor chores. On Fridays, they help me by cleaning their own rooms and washing their own laundry. They also have a rotating chore chart of common rooms in the house that they are each in charge of cleaning, too. In the spring they help change pipe on the ranch. In the summer, they have to help Josh and I weed the garden and mow the lawn. In the fall, they help cut wood in the mountains, and pick, carry, & sell pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. In the winter, they help Josh haul wood for our wood-burning stove. Working together as a family helps unite us, and it gives them something productive to do, as well as teaching them useful trades.

"WHOLESOME RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES: This is the boys’ favorite principle, I’m sure! Since Josh works overtime hours in the summer at the golf course, we can’t go on long summer vacations like most families. So in 2006 we purchased a camping trailer so that we could take advantage of visiting all the beautiful places so close to home and still feel like we’re on vacation. We love camping together! We relax, hike, swim, cook around the campfire, and we enjoy being with each other surrounded by God’s beautiful creations. I’ve made it a goal that as a family once a year, we go visit one of the boys’ great-grandparents, so they can know our extended family better. When we make the yearly trip, we also incorporate going to a fun site for the boys to have opportunities to see new places and do exciting things together. Every other year, the boys alternate between having a family birthday party and a friend birthday party. When it’s the family birthday party turn, the birthday boy decides what activity we’ll do together. We’ve gone to Lagoon, camped at Hot Springs, 4-wheeled at the Sand Dunes, gone bowling, gone swimming, and golfed together. It’s fun to do things together, and it also makes each of the boys feel special because they got to pick what it was that we did.  

"Parents have been given the sacred duty to bring up children in the nurture of the Lord, as stated in Ephesians 6:4. Sometimes, I feel like my duties extend beyond that of just a parent. My dad asked me once how we run our household. At the time, I was a stay-home mom and I told my dad that Josh is the governor, because he makes all the big decisions as the priesthood holder, and I’m the mayor, because I make all the day-to-day choices since I was home more. Now that I work, I often feel like our family is a business and I’m the CEO, and Josh is the CFO—I manage everyone’s schedules and he manages our finances. Sometimes on weekends, I feel like I’m the police officer and Josh is the lawyer: I put the boys in time-out (which they feel like is jail) and he talks to them and helps them rectify the situation and then they are allowed out! But regardless of whatever it is that I feel like I am, I am and will always be a mother. And I will always be their mother, whether they like it or not!

"And as a parent, just as any of you who are parents or will someday be parents, it is important to remember that we must regard our children as gifts from God. As parents, we need to be committed to making our homes a place to love, train, and nurture our sons and daughters. By setting personal goals, and helping our children set theirs, we work towards bettering ourselves in different aspects of our lives. This assists us in bringing our children up in light and truth like it says in D&C 93:40, and preparing them to receive the priesthood, go on a mission, becoming model citizens, and eventually being parents themselves.

"I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be a mother, and for the chance I have to teach and raise my 4 boys in the gospel. I know that I am a child of God, I know that my sons are precious gifts that God has entrusted in my care. Each year I make personal goals that will help me grow closer and to be more like the Savior. I know that Jesus is my Savior and it is only through his atonement that we are able to live together someday. I know that through the temple ordinances, we will be a forever family. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

My 2013 goals are based upon different areas of my life that I know I need to improve on, just like I did when I was 3 1/2 years old...

1. PERSONAL: Never be more than 2 months behind on the blog.

2. SPIRITUAL: Go to the temple 6 times.

3. INTELLECTUAL: Finish reading the Book of Mormon.

4. FAMILY: Take one of my children on a date each month.

5. MARRIAGE: Go on a trip alone with Josh twice during the year.

6. PHYSICAL: Get my weight under 200 pounds.

7. FINANCIAL: Pay off my credit card.

8. SOCIAL: Invite others to my home for a group gathering once per season.