"A Goal Without a Plan Is Just a Wish"

Today in Elder’s Quorum we had a lesson on having a purpose in your life and trying to achieve that purpose in our lives. As i pondered this in class today it brought back something really big that my Mission President taught me about setting goals in this life which is what the title is he always said that a goal without a plan is just a wish. He would try and get this point across to us a lot and it took me awhile to realize just how true that is. It is super easy to set goals and think well if I set them it will motivate me to accomplish them, but let's be honest most of the time we set a goal and then we forget about it and think every once in awhile, “Oh ya that would be nice I want to get there someday but i am not there yet.” Well duh you are not there yet because you aren't trying hard enough.


It was in an area on my mission where the work was really struggling that I learned how important it is to have a plan behind your goal. Me and my companion sat down one week to plan and we set goals like we always do, but this time made very specific plans for each and every one of those goals and within the next two weeks the amount of people we were teaching doubled and we found 3 people in those weeks who are baptized members of the Church today. It had been a long time since Elders had baptized someone in that area, almost a year, but all it took was setting goals and then making  a plan and working hard to follow it!


The Lord blesses those who try their hardest to achieve things that bring about good in our lives. I think that far too often in this life people don't think that the Lord cares about the goals we have in this life if it isn't related to anything spiritual. That couldn't be farther from the truth. God cares about every aspect of our lives and he wants us to be successful! So if we have goals in our lives we want to obtain that are good God will help us he tells us this in the scriptures. In Alma 7:23 it says
"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive."


If we are living a righteous life and doing our best to follow the Lord he tells us that we will be able to ask him for anything that we stand in need of spiritual or temporal. So if you have goals don't just wait for them to happen make a plan and then take this plan to the Lord and if it is his will he will help you achieve these goals! I have a strong testimony that the Lord cares about every aspect of our lives. During my mission I had gained a total of 40lbs and I really wanted to lose it before I completed my mission and went home. I had been trying for months, but I never made a real plan to reach that goal. In my last area of my mission I set the goal again and then I made a plan and I took that plan to the Lord and every time I prayed I asked the Lord to continue to help me to be healthier and to keep trying to archive my goals. Over the last four months of my mission I worked extra hard to eat healthy and work out and by the time I went home I weighed 210 lbs I started at 253 when I got to that area.


We can do anything we put our minds to with the Lord on our side. so if you want to be better at something do it! You can do it. Have faith in yourselves and in GOD   "for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you."- Habakkuk 1:5

Don't Let Others Define You

Today I was siting in in sacrament meeting pondering my current life situation who I am today and how I got here. Right now in my life i fell very happy and feel like i am doing good things just living a good life. I attribute just a lot of my current happiness and who i am to my mission because I wasn't always like the way I am today. There was a point in my life where I didn't have the happiness and confidence that i have today. When I was going into the  7th grade my family decided to buy some land in Benson Arizona and try to build a house i was pretty exited at first about what i thought we be  super awesome adventure. The house that my family planned to build was like a dream house for me and for all of us. We moved out to Benson before we had a house built we lived out on our land in trailers and an army tent with wood pallets as our floor across the dusty dessert ground and oh ya a port o potty to use for the bathroom.... Life in Benson was different i was a new kid in a small town in Arizona and entering a wired time in everyone's life middle school. At first I enjoyed my life it was fun ad different i joined a football team and liked playing football but after a month it started to get hard first in football i had never played full contact before so i wasn't that good and this is where the bullying started i was made fun of by a few players and i just tired to play it off and not worry about it and i was also in the band at school and people in there started to make fun of me and telling me i wasn't any good. I was a chunky kid and this was the biggest thing that was exploited. I was made fun of and bullied every day at school because of my size and other things i really didn't have anywhere to turn even n the weekends I was made fun one of the people who bullied me the most was in our ward so no matter where I went i was bullied. this really changed my life the way i acted what i did i i wore a jacket almost every day to try and hide my weight always wore baggy clothes so that you couldn't tell how big I was life was hard. This made my self confidence go way down i didn't really feel like i could do much very well people were always telling me i couldn't do things. I played basketball one year and ended up ditching practices and getting cut because of the bullying basketball is something i love a lot but it was better to avoid more ridicule then to do what i loved. Life was hard and it really wasn't getting better i was angry a lot i kept it all bottled up inside of me i never talked to any one about it. I went about it all in the wrong way The worst way to every handle bullying is to keep it in and hoping it will all just end someday when life moves on. If you are being bullied right now tell someone anyone find someone you can trust and tell them. Eventually we moved from benson and then moved to Alabama. It was in Alabama where i was finally able to move on a little bit it took a year or two but i met people who i trusted and people who built my self confidence back up. Young men leaders who set great examples for me and i met a friend who is my best friend to today who made it me a better person this friend was someone who i was able to confine in and had i not meet them i might not of gone on a mission.My mission was the true turning point in my life i was still not that self confident i was shy and dint like talking to people i didn't know or talking in front of big groups. But my first companion taught me something i told him that being shy and reserved  was just my nature and that it wouldn't change but he then told me that because of the atonement of Jesus Christ our natures can change and that through Christ i could change. It took me a little while to realize how true this was but once i accepted this fact and let give my will to the lord and let him change me into who he needed me to be then I finally become the happiest i had been since 7th grade. I never thought I could be the person I have become today as happy as i am and as well having a love of  talking to groups of people teaching lessons giving talks doing things with people. I went from a very low point with now confidence in my self and who i was and who i could become. Now i have purpose in life i know who am and where i am going. In Alma 26:12  it says
"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; " Never let one anyone else says define who you are. If you are being bullied dont turn inwards turn outwards serve others find a purpose in life. find surround your self with people who will make you better not bring you down. Most of all turn to and rely on our savior Jesus Christ because he has suffered for all the pain you feel in this life and he can and will help you overcome all of your problems in this life. the lord loves us all and wants us o be happy so let him in to your life so that you can be happy. 

Keep your head up and keep trying there is always light at the end of a dark tunnel.