Patience and Faith...

"Elder Neal A. Maxwell linked patience and faith together when he taught: 'Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father.Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best--better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His' ("Patience," Ensign,Oct. 1980, 28).
"We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and pattern to unfold in our lives,on His timetable."
(Robert C. Oaks, "The Power of Patience," Ensign, Nov. 2006, 16-17)

Yep, another quote. But hey, why try to express it in my own words when the prophets have already done it so well? This quote, along with my mom's last blog post inspired this post.
Goals are a hard thing for me. I always have such good intentions, but I have a hard time sticking with it. I get impatient or discouraged, and then I just quit for a while until something strengthens my resolve.

One thing that I think I'm going to start doing is writing my goals down. Another quote that I have stuck to the side of my bookshelf says "A goal not written down is only a wish" or something like that. I am also going to try to be better at trusting God to help me in His own time and in His own way. He always knows what's best for me, even when I don't. My plans for myself may not be the same as His plans for me. So I'll keep working toward what I want to accomplish while praying for guidance so that He can show me what He wants for me.

What are my goals? Well, I have many of course, but here are some of my bigger ones: First, I want to write a book. I promise, it's much harder than it sounds. Even for those with a huge amount of talent it's a lot of work. I don't have a huge amount of talent, so for me it's A LOT of work. But I love it. I have almost always loved to write. Poems, short stories, even past journal entries were fairly lengthy for a nine year old to have written. Now it is one of my dreams to write a book. I know I can do it. I just don't apply myself like I should. I have been working on writing one for about two and half years now. It's actually sort of turned into a jumble of notebooks that are the beginnings of about three novels. I call it my "never ending novel". But I swear to myself and all of you that I WILL WRITE A BOOK!!! Hopefully I'll have it done by he time I'm fifty. Ok, that's a bad attitude. I'll have it done in two years or less. Including both rough draft and the final version.

What's my number two goal? To finish my Personal Progress. That whole program is entirely made up of making and accomplishing goals, so you can see why I've had a hard time with it. Two years ago when moved here, I was ahead of all the other girls. I was keeping up with it pretty well. But I slowly slipped behind so that I am now one of the soon-to-be Laurels who only has a couple years left to finish it and is sadly fallen short. I declare that I WILL FINNISH IT!!! And It must be before I turn eighteen. This one isn't actually all that hard. I could easily finish it if I really tried. But it's one of the things that I say "oh, I really need to work on that sometime soon." It's like the quote that says "the road to anywhere is the road to nowhere." I likewise say that I'll do it sometime means I'll never get it done. So I think I'll plan a specific time to do it. Hmm, how about a little every Sunday, and every Friday when I don't have seminary, and Thursday if I do.

My third goal is... Sigh... college. I am so close to being done with school, and I am volunteering myself for more! Haha, =D . I do want to go to college. It's just the math that discourages me. I know I have to know enough of it to pass S.A.T or whatever. But I hate it so much! Have you heard of the brain dominance theory? It suggests that the left half of your brain is mainly in charge of dealing with the logical and mathematical stuff. While the right half is over the creative and emotional stuff. It suggests that each of us has one half that is more strongly developed than the other. I would say my strong half is most definitely the right half. But I have to try and make both halves as equal as I can, and that requires more practice in the mathematical area. Ugh.
So I need to get moving on education and scholarships so that I can make it to and through college. For the first two years CEU (College of Eastern Utah) and then maybe BYU (Brigham Young University) or some other college up in the Orem and Provo area.

Well those are my biggest goals. Apart from marriage in the temple, etc... But I won't talk about that. I hope I didn't bore you to much! But hey, it's my blog.