Reboot! What is Character?

Ha! Here I am again -- you thought this blog was dead, didn't you? But I'm getting back on the wagon, with some modifications. I'm going to focus down a bit on what this blog covers, specifically I will be looking to post useful quotes from the doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls, scripture study, and my reading from other "good books". I'll also link in any blog posts or articles I write, keeping a running total for my own records.

Today is day one, so while you can see the previous posts let's not worry about those for now. At a minimum I will be carrying through with this until the end of the just restarted Daily Mentor program (60 days). So let's start off with a quote for the day from Hyrum Smith (of Franklin Covey fame):

“Character is the ability to carry out a worthy decision after the emotion of making that decision has passed. Character simply stated is doing what you said you were going to do. If you develop a reputation for that, do you have any idea the effect that has on self-perception? Its immense, just immense. The Savior was a man of character. He did everything he said he was going to do.”

You get to be the judge of whether or not I make the grade for having character. I've perhaps fallen short of the mark set in the above quote lately, but there's a difference between missing the mark and quitting. Or put another way, the past attempts failed, but I'm here and I'm still trying, which is better than giving up! And that's all part of following the Slight Edge philosophy.

Just to fill in a few other blanks from the past several months, our house took longer than expected to paint -- one room in particular (the "murder room") took way more effort than we had anticipated. We ended up doing the following:

Three coats of primer (Hmm...the drips are totally showing through).
Sand down most of the wall to remove drips (hey, look! They have painted this room at least three times in seven years!)
Two more layers of primer (the drips are still visible as vertical lines, ugh)
Try some spray on texture (useless and expensive at $15 per can -- we would have needed 20 or so)
Rent a texture sprayer from Home Depot (finally some progress, though messy)
Start to paint again (oh no! We can still see drips!)
Buy a texture roller and do the walls again with a heavy texture (I think we're done...)
Cover with two coats of paint (finally!)

Yeah, it took that much to get things fixed to the state where if you walk in the room now, you wouldn't notice anything odd about the walls. There's only one room left to paint, which will be my new office when it's done. My goal for the week is to have that completed by Saturday, making some progress each day. Today's goal: sand a few areas and put on a layer of primer.

The other big news is that I was called as the Ward Mission Leader about a month ago. Let me tell you, that was a surprise and it's one of those callings that requires a lot of work and is really important -- it's not just something where you sit on the sidelines biding your time. So part of this blog is now a way for me to at least make some small effort to share something related to the Gospel each day.

General Conference was also last weekend, and let me tell you, I'm not sure I've ever heard so many talks related to missionary work. I felt that on Saturday, no less than three talks were basically saying, "Okay, Jarred, this talk is for you." If you're interested, the talks are: Elder John B. Dickson, The Gospel to All the World (he directly addresses Ward Mission Leaders); President Henry B. Eyring, We Are One (discusses the ward mission plan and gives a story of one bishop's efforts); and President Thomas S. Monson, Come, All Ye Sons of God (some form of the word "mission" is used 30 times in his talk).

This was a great inspiration for me, and I came away with some Slight Edge thoughts on how to help the ward become better missionaries. I feel confident that for each person that does the following, they will have some friend or family member taking the missionary discussions by the end of the year: 1) Begin each day with a prayer, and ask for an opportunity to share the gospel and serve at least one person. 2) Read from the scriptures for at least 10 minutes, and look for some spiritual thought you could share. 3) Look for and take the chance to tell someone some small thing related to the church -- whether it be the scripture in step two, or just "I'm a Mormon...." And again, that's something I'll be covering in this blog.

That's it for now; welcome to the rebooted Slight Edge Diary!