Blessings in Disguise

This past week I've been ill with a sinus infection.  Usually this would be seen as a negative, especially since I had to stay home from work and go to the doctor, thereby missing the revenue I would have made had I worked.  However, the time to rest and recuperate my body was also useful in recuperating my mind, and I came back rested, refreshed and ready to work.  Work then becomes far less of a boring task to be checked off and more of a pleasant experience.

What I have learned: be grateful for trials, they are often blessings in disguise.

Goals

I wasn't perfect, but I feel like I did significantly better.  I've been making scripture study a bigger part of my life and I've found scriptures come into my head more.  The scripture that came into my mind is Alma 48:17 It's about captain Moroni, how if every man was like him, Hell would be closed.  I want to be like that, so I figured I ought to study him, his life, his choices and his character.  I was also thinking about the scriptures where it says that God "giveth liberally" to those who ask.  that has a lot of implications to me.  I have to figure out what it is that I need to ask for.  More importantly however, I need to "pray in faith"  I've been thinking about faith and what that means for me.  Faith is an action (not an inaction). Which means I need to do something.  I figured out the things that would really help.  (Also I was thinking that personal progress really worked for me so I wanted to create goals that mirrored the program)1. being geneology and indexing because the general authorities in the last conference said it strengthens and protects us against temptation (10 hour project). then there were some other ones that were less important.  I had an interesting discovery, I came to the "avoiding bad habit" part and realized that it wasn't an action, it wasn't something I could do.  I decided I needed to find a replacement activity.  I decided that When I get in the mindset that I end up in bad habits, it might be "easy" (with some practice) to divert this mindset into a good channel by writing letters.  

Back to the "giveth liberally." It gave me a different picture of Heavenly Father.  As if he is just waiting to give me these blessings and he's not going to skimp on them either.  He is generous in his gifts. This is a huge perspective change for me.

I figured all this out by reading and keeping a journal.

Just a little bit, just a little bit of....progress

SO TODAY IS THE DAY AFTER MY ORIGINAL MOTIVATION TO GO ON A MISSION

(http://0.tqn.com/d/lds/1/G/6/O/1/missionary_fund_sm.jpg)

Last night I went to bed earlier than I otherwise would, but still relatively late.

I changed my desktop background to spiritual pictures.

read more scriptures

kept the health code a little more.

and prayed more

I read in Leviticus yesterday (I'm taking an Old Testament class) and I was learning about the sacrifices and especially about their Kosher laws.  Its a little bit difficult to follow, but as I read it occurred to me that perhaps because they didn't have all the technologies we do today, it was a law to protect them physically.  All the animals that they were not allowed to eat, are more prone to disease or giving viruses, and without the proper treatment with modern sciences they were unsafe.  This is further evidence that as we obey God's law we will be blessed.  He protected them and now gives us laws to protect us.