Each January instead of making new years resolutions (which i think were made to be broken) we make goals. Sometimes our goals are the same ones we had the year before, as growth is a constant and some things are too important to not be working on each and everyday.
We get together as a family and write down individual goals and then family goals. We begin our new year with a fancy dinner like one would have at Thanksgiving or Christmas. This year as we were eating we started brainstorming about our goals. On Monday for Family Home Evening we will write them down and make a poster board of them. This poster board of cut outs from magazines (and sometimes drawings) gets put up somewhere really visible in the house and helps us remember the things we are supposed to be working on. If we are more aware of the things we want to accomplish then they are more likely to come to pass. Positive thinking is key! Anything can happen.
Another thing we do that goes hand in hand with the poster board is write ourselves a blessing. I know that at first that sounds a little strange, but a few years back while we were still in Utah as part of a Relief Society class the RS President shared a story from President Boyd K. Packer. President Packer shared it at an MIA Conference in June of 1971. Here's a bit from the quote i have:
"A few years ago Donna and I attended a holiday dinner at the home of one of our beloved friends. It was a new Years Eve party. Our host had an activity for the evening. He read a few verses of scripture and then read at some length from a quotation from Heber C. Kimball, a member of the First Presidency during his life. I'll quote just one sentence from his quotation from President Kimball.
'I have often said,' President Kimballs says, 'you may write blessings for yourselves and insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.'
Our host gave us a sheet of paper and an envelope and suggested we write upon the paper the things we hoped to achieve during the new year. And then he repeated again the quotation from Bro. Kimball, 'you may write blessings for yourselves. Insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.'
After we had written our goals on the paper we were asked to seal the envelope and put our name on it. 'I will take these to the bank and put them in the vault,' he said. 'And a year from now we'll meet again and have a dinner and I'll deliver them to you. And we will tell, if we wish, how nearly we have achieved our goals.'"
President Packer goes on to relate a couple of the things he wrote down and how a year later as late as New Years Eve itself all 6 of the things he wrote down had come to pass. They were miracles.....
We have had miracles, things i thought impossible and some things that there was little i could do to help come to pass other than pray and fast, and yet they did. It is my favorite part of the new year....writing blessings.
Here are some pics of our dinner. Happy New Year everyone! I hope miracles happen for you this year too.
YUM!
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