Tuesday, October 2, 2012

30 Day Challenge

It's happening. I'm reading the Book of Mormon in 30 DAYS. It's tough, I'll tell ya that. But, oh my goodness, it is VERY worth it. Already in the past... since yesterday morning, I'm understanding more and making connections on my own. It's like a crash seminary course, all by yourself (when I say 'all by yourself', I mean, no seminary teacher there feeding you the answers or even there to give you any answers, y'know?)
Honestly, I've only had one or two periods where I actually read the scriptures EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. So I think that could be why I feel so darn lazy when I had to read 10 whole chapters yesterday. But, I really feel like this is what I should be doing. This is a good way to kick start the habit, as well as cement it into my daily life. If you do something for fifteen to thirty days in a row, it becomes a habit (apparently). I'm so excited to see who I am after this experience. Hopefully, I'm WAY closer to who I'm meant to be than who I am right now. Not that I'm a bad person or anything (at least, I don't think I'm a bad person) I just have a lot of things that I REALLY needed to work on. Really. Two of them being: {1} Prayer and {2} Reading my scriptures. And ironically, those two things help A LOT with the third thing I really needed to be done with (sorry, it's not really blog appropriate, kinda personal, and I'd really rather not). Those two things give me a strength that I don't know I've ever quite felt before. I've never been much of a pray-er, which I HATE to admit. And it's something I've been struggling with... all my adolescent life. It's not like I don't WANT to pray, I just sometimes (most times) have no clue what to say and I feel silly because a lot of the time, my problems sound so stupid when I whisper them aloud. I know that it's dumb to feel this way too, and I know that God really wants to hear about them and help me. But still. I'm workin' on it. :) 

On to my actual process with the 30 day challenge. 

I start with a prayer. Always. It helps bring the Spirit and I feel it gives me the extra push (probably since I always pray for the motivation to keep this going for the full thirty days). I try to pick out any 'lists' or meanings of the parables/visions and write them in a notebook I keep next to me. Which, I think is very important. KEEP A WRITING UTENSIL AND PAPER OF SOME SORT OPEN AND READY TO WRITE THINGS DOWN. It shows that you're ready to record when inspiration hits. When I kept up that regimen in seminary and actually took notes, I got SO much more out of the lessons than I did when I slacked off and studied for my AP Psych test/did math homework/mythology homework/anything else really. I write down things that I find important to the story line of the scriptures, (yes, there's a story line, I always knew it was there, but now I'm ACTUALLY seeing it for myself). And at the very end, I write down "A QUESTION FOR THE HEAVENS". Which, is a question that, after having read that particular section, I want to ask one of the people involved when I meet them in heaven, whether it relates directly to what happened, or how they felt about something, or why it was them in particular, or what. It helps me to think more deeply about what's happening and relate better. I want to understand, which is a bog part of this whole thing. UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES. I don't think anyone really treats the scriptures as {books} necessarily. I mean, obviously they are BOOKS. But we would never read them like we read other pieces of literature (i.e. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, ... Twilight, etc.) And I'm really loving this way of reading them. More like a BOOK. Even if there are times when I zone out a little bit because each section feels so long, or whatever, I'm still getting so much more out of it. 

2 comments:

  1. You know I love this (: You inspire me to be better. I love it. Kudos to you Reille!!!

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  2. LOVE THIS! i need motivation to do the same
    :)

    stalkayla.blogspot.com

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