New Beginnings

It's a new year. It's 2011! Can you believe it?!?! I sure can't. It feels like it was just a few months ago that I moved back to Utah from NYC, but it's been over a year. Last year at this time, I was preparing to go away to Costa Rica for 6 weeks. Sadly, this year I am just preparing for busy season...again. But I'm excited for this new year. I'm determined to make it a good one.

Just yesterday I was talking with Jo about this coming year. I told her that it was going to be a year where I focused on myself. I want to really work on being a better person and becoming the person that I want to be. Sounds like a great goal, right? Focusing on one's self is the best way to gain happiness, right? At least, that's what all those self-help books say. And, as we all know, the people who write those are always right. HAHAHA! But so was my thinking - focusing on me for the new year is going to be the best way to make my life the one I really want to live.

But the Lord knows better. He knew my new goal and so inspired me to attend a different ward today. I went to my friend Kimmy's ward in West Bountiful. I am so glad that I did, too. The Relief Society lesson was based off President Dieter F. Uchtdor's talk Happiness, Your Heritage. Toward the end of the lesson, the girl who was teaching began speaking on how we can be truly happy - focusing on others, not on ourselves. She said that in this time of our lives it's so easy for us to slip into thinking only about "me." We have such big decisions to make during this time of our lives we feel like we should be focusing on ourselves. But President Uchtdorf points out that it is through focusing on others that we gain the Spirit and in turn are guided by the Lord in what we should do.

As she was speaking, the conversation I had with Jo the night before came back in my mind. I immediately raised my hand to tell of my previous thinking. I told her that I was so thankful for this lesson because it helped me see that to become the person I want to be I needed to spend the upcoming year not focusing on me, but focusing on others. So this is my new goal for the year - focus on others and their needs.

Sure there are definitely things in my life that I need to improve, and I am going to work on those as well. But I pray that I will be able to keep this focus throughout the year and that by doing so I can become closer to my Lord & Savior.

Just to close, I want to leave you with the inspired words of President Uchtdorf:

In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. Let us open our eyes and see the heavy hearts, notice the loneliness and despair; let us feel the silent prayers of others around us, and let us be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to answer those prayers.

May we all go out and be the Lord's hands in 2011. Happy New Year!