One thing that impacted me the most as I watched and listened to him speak again tonight was his emphasis on enjoying the small things. He pointed out that a lot of the time we are so focused on the end result in our journey through life that we forget to notice all of the other good things in our life while we are trying to obtain that BIG goal, when in reality, we should be able to realize the happenings in our lives that are small and simple. Whether it be something that happened today or yesterday that was somewhat insignificant, but just so happened to make you feel that much better and maybe happened to put a smile on your face.
Let me share a personal example of my own that may help you better understand what President Uchtdorf is trying to help the women of the church (as well as anyone in the world) should consider. Although this example may seem simple, I still believes that it exemplifies exactly what he is trying to say, but only on a much smaller scale.
We all know that Monday is known for its stigma of being the worst day of the week. We generally tend to dread Mondays and always tend to look forward to Fridays and the beginning of the weekend. This also causes us to maybe not enjoy the rest of the week as we are just trying to make it to the weekend alive. But here are some things that I realized made the last week worth my while.
Last Sunday, I had a meeting with my bishop to talk about going on a mission. I then went to mission prep after that and enjoyed the wonderful lesson given by Sister Nyland. Also, something to mention is that our mission prep class (which I had started attending before they made the announcement) had tripled in size! There were a whoppin' 12 people there! Heck yes. Haha, anyways, after that I was able to spend some time with a dear friend.
Well, then Monday rolled around and I was able to sleep in because I didn't have to leave until about 11:30 that morning. Fortunately, I was able to make a list of all of the wonderful things that had happened that day, as well as on Tuesday. I love realizing the little things. For another experience in personal progress, I had decided to write down at least 3-5 things every night for a few weeks of things that were good that happened that day. This was during a time where I was really busy and didn't have much time to fully write out the happenings of my day, so even when it was a somewhat rough day, I was able to sort through everything that occurred that day and write down even the smallest of things that turned out to make me realize that I had had a wonderful day. Here's an example:
November 10, 2011 - I had to sweep and mop the wrestling room today [by myself] and Izak was nice enough to stay and wait for me. I was definitely grateful for that - it was awfully nice of him to do tha for me :)
November 11, 2011 - This morning before the [freedom] assembly, we were doing a few run throughs and I ran to the back of the gym and ran up the bleachers and tripped and fell. And somehow managed to get a bruise on top of my foot. Ha... yeah, it hurts, but it was hilarious and embarrassing a bit. Especially when Dad spoke into the mic and said (rather loudly), "Hey, did everyone see Savanna trip?"
November 14, 2011 - Today was a minimal day, which was nice. I always love those days.
November 15, 2011 - [In choir today] singing those wonderful songs was awesome. We even went out into the hallway where the acoustic was much better and it was just wonderful. I hope that we'll be able to do it again tomorrow. It was just very therapeutic whenver we sing those wonderful songs with such power. It was just freaking awesome. Durtschi said that when we get a little better, we'll go out into the commons. That will be freaking sweet!
November 17, 2011 - I asked Coach [Harris] why he asked me to be a manager. Seriously though, I didn't volunteer, he asked me, therefore I asked him why. He said, "What? You don't want to?" and I said, "Coach, if I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't." "Oh, alright." (Of course this is where he smiles and he has the most contagious smile. It's awesome.) "But really, why?" "Because I like you. I think you're awesome!" Haha, okay. I'll take it :)
So as you can tell, none of the things that I just shared with you above have any life-changing qualities, but they were just expressions of gratitude for the little things. Some are simpler and others are more detailed, but things like this still just make me smile. It also made me realize that my life really is good and it only takes a small amount of time to think about and write down the wonderful things that happened throughout your day. It makes you a lot more grateful for the little things and the tender mercies that carry you throughout the week. So here's the last one of the night that happened last night:
October 20, 2012 - Yesterday after spending 3 hours at the Provo Temple, I didn't really do much for the rest of the day. I ended up meeting a couple of girls in PG to take their pictures for Sadies. (I miss high school dances.) After I got done with them, I headed over to Shawna's house to hang out and wait for Nikki to get home so that I could go and watch some movies with her. I was getting impatient and Brett had invited me over to hang out with him and so I decided to head over there to his house to hang out. We ended up watching Charlie Chaplin, which was fun because Brett had never seen any of his movies before, and we just talked the whole time. It was nice to get to talk to someone who is SO good at listening! It was also fun to try and get him to talk for long periods of time (about REALLY random things). I talked about some of my frustrations and he just patiently listened and heard me out. Another thing that I noticed was when Ruth came downstairs, she was laughing and crying (apparently a sign of exhaustion) and Brett immediately got up to give his sister a hug and to comfort her. It was really sweet to see that. It just made me love him even more. :)
Enjoy your night everyone and remember to look for the small and simple things (Alma 37:6-7) to brighten your day and help you to be happy on your journey! :)
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