"...Seek, And Ye Shall Find..."

I thought I would dedicate a blog post to being thankful to my Heavenly Father for the many blessings He gives me.  2013 has been so wonderful so far and I am really excited for what the next 11 months will bring. Especially seeing Matthew in 9 months. :D

My life has just been great lately. I feel motivated, determined, dedicated, and diligent in the goals I'm working towards. I am happy to say that I am sticking with list of goals I made a few weeks ago and they have proved to be a great blessing in my life. I find all of the spiritual goals the most important to me. Even from the time before Matthew left on his mission, I knew it was going to be important to progress and improve myself over those two years so that I would be at the same level he was when he came home. I actually did really well with that. I started college and I'm now a Sophomore and I got a job that I will have been at for 1 year in May. I have really been progressing and growing through doing those two things. However, it wasn't until the beginning of this year that I realized that as much as this temporal growth was important, I needed to be focusing on my spiritual growth as well. After coming to this realization, I set a couple of simple goals like reading one chapter of the Book of Mormon everyday, and reading a conference talk each Sunday. Since making those goals, I have carried them out every day without fail. I can definitely tell a change in my life. Not just in the overall picture of things, but in each moment of everyday. I believe this is where the extra motivation is coming from and it feels wonderful! Not only am I more driven to do tasks, but I just have a more positive outlook towards life and I've noticed that the little things don't seem to bother as bad (I'm still working on not letting them bother me at all) as they usually would. Because of this effort I've noticed more opportunities for greatness arising. It's not like beforehand I was really off the path and needed to find my way back, but I just didn't seem to be spending enough time being spiritually nourished. I wasn't really growing spiritually. I still had a testimony and everything, but I was continually developing it.

I shared my experiences with Matthew in the last letter I wrote to him. I'm hoping to make those spiritual experiences a bigger part of my letters, especially since he is pretty much submerged in the scriptures and the gospel everyday.

So I am happy to say that with a new year and a new start to everything, I have made becoming spiritually stronger not just a goal for 2013 but an improvement to my lifestyle. I know Heavenly Father has blessed me greatly already because of my desire. I also know studying and learning these doctrines and truths for myself is going to help me to better support Matthew, which is very important to me. :)

"Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."

3 Nephi 13: 7