Pathway Experiences

When I was a missionary, I was taught the S.M.A.R.T. way of making goals and achieving them.  I probably learned much by what I was not doing when I began missionary service.  All that I did previously was honorable for my preparation, but missionary service exposed me to other people I had to work very close with and that was a more shocking and difficult endeavor than simply saying what was true about God and his work on the earth. I can't say I made the most use of SMART goal making when I was a missionary, but I did use it consistently because mostly the same principles were taught in Preach My Gospel , the missionary manual.  For this reason, I have understood it for years, but after my missionary service I used this art of goal making less and less and never more effectively.  When it was re-introduced for this class, I was pleased, but I realized that without a companion to do such things as I learn in this class with, they have much less meaning to me, beca...

I have discovered a major problem in my own and others goals. I understand that most goals are simple statements of intent, whether specific or not. While conversing and studying in the gathering.I realized that I had been doing one thing deficiently. I didn't have a true time limit.  No matter how silly it seems, time limits give us more for achieving our goals than they take away.  For the lost time and pressure spent on convenience, one gains the focus on just the time between now and the goal end period, and the ability to renew or re-evaluate the goal for the next week. Once, when I was a missionary, I used goals and a planner that had backcups and weekly time limits.  Ever since then I have neglected that detail I have found that I couldn't achieve my goals in the most satisfying ways.  So, when I was reminded of it in class I made it a point of focus  for me to fix that particular. Having a time-limit is part of the S.M.A.R.T. style of setting goals...

It seems that moral Agency is something the Lord really wants us to believe and understand. This week, I have learned how to consider agency from multiple perspectives to the point of reading and hearing language that sounds redundant, yet true. To me there is no question of moral agency, for we have far more power to direct our thoughts, feelings, and desires of the heart than we have exercised. The truth of the matter is that we can all be pure and wholesome, for what power over ourselves we do not have, we may have by faith, prayer and fasting. The main reason that comes to my mind that we do not exercise our agency as a people, that is to act rather than be acted upon, is that we are told and find it convenient to believe that certain aspects of ourselves are guided or controlled by forces that we have to choice to determine, such as who we fall in love with, and what hobbies or passions will overcome us, or whether we can stay away from some activity or behavioral addiction that...