Renewed Determination

This weekend was general conference.  I still have the Saturday morning session to catch up on but we are thoroughly enjoying renewed determination to be a little better in all that we do.   I fasted last week in preparation for this conference, putting that age old wisdom to the test:  Come prepared to conference with a question having fasted and prayed and you will find peace.  I did that.  I'll go ahead and reveal that I've been struggling with feeling the spirit lately and have spent a lot of time wondering just where God was in his love for me individually.  I wanted to know what I could do to better meet God half-way so that I could feel Him.  

I did get some peace and did feel there were things that I could be doing better to allow my Heavenly Father to reveal Himself to me.  I love Elder Bednars talk about prayer and expressing gratitude for what we are blessed with, in my case, when he does reveal himself to me though it may seem very small.  I have spent the last three nights giving prayers of only gratitude and I do feel that has been a blessing to me already.  I also am trying to give more meaningful morning prayer, sighting a specific goal for the day.

Tonight in Family Home Evening I was assigned the lesson and this was our theme.  I showed the kids a picture of Elder Bednar and explained a little bit about his talk.  Everyone chose something to work on and we promised to pray for guidance in this each morning and report to our Father in Heaven each night.  The kids colored a picture of them doing this goal.  Here are our goals:

Daddy:  Speak with more patience and a kinder tone to the kids.  And to come home from work in a good mood.  

Mommy:  Speak in a more patient and kind tone, being slower to anger.  Savor the moments of having my young children, showing more love to them always. 

Isaac:  Be nice to everyone, always.  (his exact words)  Make 5 basketball goals each day.

Georgie:  Be nice to everyone, always.  (she idolized her big brother!)

I love conference!  Who doesn't need an occasional weekend of self-help skills spoken from the pulpit by extremely wise men!!  I dare say...no one;)