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Finding my way to God

Originally written August 3, 2014

Yesterday I went to the Ogden Temple open house. I wanted to go because I've never been inside a temple, and I also wanted to see if going inside would help give me insight on whether being LDS was the right choice for me. While walking through the temple, I had various thoughts about the different rooms I was seeing (mainly on the decoration), but two thoughts were more prominent: 1) I want to get married here (as in the temple, not a specific one); and 2) the hymn "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" was playing in my head the whole time. I didn't feel confused about whether I should be LDS or not. Maybe that's God's way of saying that I should?  Also, I wasn't sad or depressed that I was there by myself. I wanted to focus on being in the temple and having that experience, and that's what I did.

There's a blog that I follow on Tumblr called Spiritual Inspiration, and lately parts of a few of their posts have really spoken to me:

"Many people expect the voice of God to boom like a loudspeaker, but scripture tells us that He speaks in a still, small voice. To us, it seems like an impression inside."

"Scripture says, "Seek first." That indicates that we should take time for God at the start of the day. Don't give Him your leftover time. Make Him a part of your normal routine. Make Him your first priority. Seek Him first, seek Him earnestly, and watch what He will do on your behalf."

"When a grain goes

through a tunnel and

it gets dark, you don't 

throw away the ticket

and jump off. You sit

still and trust the

engineer. Trust God

today no matter how

dark your situation.

God says, "You are

coming out!"

I know that I need to put God first in my life, and to trust that He has a plan for my life and that I need to stop trying to control it all the time (I mean, look where it's gotten me?). I know it's not something that will happen immediately, but if I stay consistent, I know that good things will happen.

My thoughts on becoming an NCO

Originally written July 30, 2014

I'm going to be sewing on Staff Sergeant soon...and I thought occurred  to me while I was at work:

What kind of NCO do I want to be?

How do I want to portray myself- my work ethic, beliefs, personality, to my airmen, coworkers, and supervisors? How do I want to lead, guide, and counsel my airmen? What kind of example do I want to set? What should I expect from them? What should they expect from me, as their supervisor?

Being a Staff Sergeant, or any NCO or SNCO rank is more than just getting a larger paycheck (although that's a nice bonus/incentive to make rank) and being able to tell people what to do, or expecting people to automatically respect you as a person because of your rank.

Being an NCO or SNCO is about leading by example. Caring for and about the people who work for you. Respecting those same people as actual people, and not just their rank. Earning their respect (without being a complete pushover just to get people to like you). It's about being tough on them when they need it, or pushing them to do better because you can see their potential. 

Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. Everyone is different, and does things their own way, but I feel that leading by example and being a good role model for those we supervise should be an important -if not the most important- universal characteristic of an NCO and SNCO.

That's just my two cents.

Jesus take the wheel...literally.

*This is part of an entry from my journal that I wanted to share with you guys (if there's anyone that still reads this thing, haha). I've felt an impression that there are things that I've written in my journal that I should also share on my blog, so the next three posts are either full entries or excerpts for recent journal entries.*

Original date written: July 27, 2014

I've been reading a book suggested to me by a friend called "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success", by Deepak Chopra. I've been doing A LOT of underlining in this book, starting at chapter 2 since my notes from chapter 1 are in a notebook. I'll transfer what I underlined into that notebook once I'm done reading it. Anyway, I'm currently on chapter 4, The Law of Least Effort, and I underlined this part that really stood out to me:

"Attention to the ego consumes the greatest amount of energy. When your internal reference point (mentioned also in chapter 1) is the ego, when you seek power and control over other people or seek approval from others, you spend energy in a wasteful way."

This stuck out to me because I have this problem, where I feel I HAVE to be in control of things that I do, or that could concern me. When I have plans made, or an idea of how I want my day to go (outside of work), I expect it to go that way. When they don't go how I planned or how I thought it would, I get frustrated and irritated. The smallest thing could go wrong, and my whole day could be ruined. However, this quote stuck out to me. I'm wasting my energy trying to exert too much control over my life (and also trying to please others, but that's not the point right now). I could let this incident ruin my whole day, or I could sulk and be mad for a little bit, try to focus on the positive aspects of the incident (not being stressed over time, having more time for homework, getting more sleep), and go about my day. So I went with option 2 and sulked, after which I cut my backyard, worked out for an hour, ran the dishwasher, cooked dinner, and worked on my beachbody coach website. 

I know that it's not something that's going to happen overnight, but I can't keep trying to have so much control over things that aren't really in my control, and stressing out or being frustrated when it doesn't go according to my plan. The same goes for things that are in my control.

"Acceptance simply means that you make a commitment: "Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur." This means I will know that this moment is as it should be... When you struggle against this moment, you're actually struggling against the entire universe." 

I think that once I learn how to properly meditate, along with prayer, reading my scriptures, and God's help, I'll be able to relinquish the iron grip of control that I have on my life and be able to actually be happy and realize my purpose and go after it. 

This book is really good so far. I'm eager to read the other book that I bought (by the same friend's suggestion) that Deepak Chopra wrote. This is some insightful stuff!

*current edit: I finished the book mentioned in this post, and it was definitely something that I needed to read. It had a lot of things that I needed to think about and incorporate into my life now. I would suggest this book to other people, for sure.