Why Should I Care?

"Why should I care?" It's something we've all thought about one thing or another - I  personally think it several times a day at school! And while maybe that's an understandable thought when you're learning about random equations you will honestly never use in your life, I really hope that's not your attitude about personal progress!! And if it is, I'm here to change it.

So why should you care? Not to be a broken record, but essentially all of the reasons I talked about in my PP month intro post!

Rather than go through all of the MANY reasons you should love personal progress, I just wanted to post and share my testimony of this incredible program with you - because it is truly wonderful!!

Personal progress has changed SO much of my view on the future, the gospel, and the people around me. For me personally, I did most of my personal progress during one of the hardest times in my life. I was struggling with health, happiness, & motivation. Rather than turn away from the gospel, I chose to put everything into it. It gave me the motivation to keep going. I credit a lot of where I am today to personal progress and this wonderfully true gospel! Maybe it won't impact you the way it did me (I hope not in the exact same way, at least - health challenges are the worst!!) but I know it will help you get through so much. It will make you a better person and help you everyday. I don't doubt it because I've seen it in action!!
So just give it a shot. Try it! It definitely won't hurt and I promise it will help!!
-Savannah

Personal Progress Tips

Here are a few short & sweet tips on how to make personal progress a little easier & hopefully more meaningful! I definitely used these to help me finish my personal progress, especially the sticky notes one! I hope they help you stay motivated to do personal progress!!

Personal Progress Tips!

* Try working on your personal progress online. You won’t have to keep track of your book! Search online for lds.org personal progress. All you need is your membership number (ask your ward clerk, they usually hang out around the bishop’s office) to set up your LDS account with a username and password.

* Each time you read a scripture or article, mark it with a highlighter or colored pencil. The next time you open your book, you won’t have to re-read the same scripture – you can go on to the next one.

*Use a dry erase marker to write a reminder message to yourself on your bedroom mirror. “Don’t gossip for 2 weeks”

* Use sticky notes to remind yourself of your goal that you are working on. “Read the Book of Mormon every night”

*Have you given a talk, been in a play, are you on a sports team, learning a musical instrument, served others, etc. You are already doing so many good things… get credit for it in personal progress!

XOXO,

Savannah 

Faith Value Project Ideas

To start out the month of personal progress, we'll be starting at the beginning of the values - faith! I want to share with you what I did for my project & other ideas of things you could do. I think the projects are one of the hardest but most fun parts of personal progress. You can do so much with them!

I completed my faith project in October 2013. I based it around general conference! To prepare, I bought a cute little notebook specifically for the conference. Then I decorated pages in the front of the notebook with pictures of all of the general authorities and little quotes from talks they had given.

(Once again - photo quality. I am so sorry!! I'll get better at this but I really wanted to get this post up, so I just used my phone again!)

I also had a page dedicated to quotes about faith (this was my faith project, after all!).

Then, during conference, I stayed awake & actually listened to all of the talks (something I do every time now!) and took notes for every speaker.

After conference, I went back through all of my notes and made goals for the next six months based on the prophet's counsel. I also wrote my thoughts on conference and my testimony of the truths that were spoken during it!

This was really a great project!! Before it, watching general conference was kind of a struggle for me. I definitely think it helped me realize the importance of conference! It also gave me answers that I so needed at that point in time. One of them was whether or not I should receive my patriarchal blessing - and I felt like it was a solid yes! I received it on November 10th, 2013.

If my project isn't really clicking with ya, here are a few more great ideas! (Faith was definitely one of the hardest values for me to find a project for.) Keep in mind that they need to total up to 10 hours:

*Write letters to missionaries

*Keep a scripture journal and write in it every day

*Memorize scripture masteries

*Memorize "The Living Christ"

*Memorize an inspiring poem

*Learn how to cross-stitch and make something that describes your feelings about the gospel

*Grow a garden

*Record stories from family or ward members who've demonstrated faith and compile a family history

*Create a website/blog featuring the YW values and your personal testimony (or an Instagram account!)

*Film interviews of friends and family members talking about their faith in Christ, then edit the video and set it to music

*Visit a church history location and create a scrapbook based on the trip, highlighting the faith of church members of that time period

*Write a book, play, song, short story or poem about faith

*Create a work of art that describes your feelings about the gospel

*Compile a family testimony book

*Sew scripture bags to give primary kids when they're baptized

*Make baptism books to give to primary kids when they're baptized

*Make a scrapbook about faith

(Disclaimer: I do not take credit for all of these ideas!! Huge shoutout to various websites & bloggers for 80% of these)

I hope you got a few ideas from this post!! Let me know if you like the formatting of it or if you would rather see these posts organized differently - I'm experimenting with it!

XOXO,

Savannah

Personal Progress Month Intro

I decided to kick off our month of personal progress inspiration with the talk I gave at my ward's medallion night - an activity for 3 of my leaders, me, and another one of our young women (Kim) when we received our young women medallions back in April of last year. Kim & I planned the night. It was the first time I had planned anything and it was so much fun! The night was great and I loved the spirit there. I also gave the same talk later last year at girls camp - a lot of our young women were unable to come to the medallion night, so Kim & I both spoke again. I modified my talk for girls camp because of the theme. Our medallion night was based on 'The Princess and the Frog' (Remember What's Important!), and girls camp was 'Anchored in Christ'. They are really the same talk with minor tweaks, but I'll be posting the modified one from girls camp! 

So, without further ado - here's my talk! 

I'm so excited to be able to speak to you today! I originally gave this talk at the medallion night a while ago, where the theme was The Princess and the Frog, so I’ve changed my talk a little bit to fit the camp theme, ‘Anchored in Christ.’

When I think of being anchored in Christ, I think of matching our priorities to those of the gospel. We cannot truly be anchored to our Savior when what’s important to Him is not important to us.

           
I think one of the best ways to know where your priorities are is to ask yourself a few questions, and really think about the answers. Questions such as, how often do you go to sports practice? How many times a week are you hanging out with your friends? How many hours are you spending practicing instruments or going to lessons? Any other activities, really, can apply here. Then ask yourself, how many times have I attended the temple in the last month? How many hours have I spent doing service? And how many times have I picked up my personal progress book in the last few weeks? Are the numbers of those answers even comparable? If you’re spending more time with your friends or at a practice for something or other than you are doing what God has called you to do, I think you might need to ask yourself whether or not you are truly anchored in Christ. None of the other activities are bad at all, they’re just not as important as the spiritual activities are.

So, how can you really become anchored in Christ? It starts with a daily commitment to put God’s standards first.  Get a rock and put it on your pillow so you remember to pray every night. Get together with your friends, choose a day, and go to the temple after school. Go home and find your personal progress book, pick a value, and start working on it. Some of the value experiences can be done in way less than an hour. All of these are great ways to start, but what I’m going to focus on most is personal progress.

I think there’s this misconception that personal progress is insanely boring and it takes forever to do, when in reality, that’s not at all true. Personal progress takes time, but so do homework and play practice. If you make time every week for personal progress, you’ll be done with it before you know it. Of course, I know how hard it can be to find motivation to do it. I really love this talk given by Jan Pinborough on ‘five reasons to love personal progress’, and I’d like to share her five reasons with you.

           
Because it can change the world. Because it can change you. Because you’re so busy. Because it leads you to the temple. Because it can help you reach your dreams.

So I’d like to go through each of the five reasons and kind of explain a little bit more what they really mean.

Let’s start with the first two, because it can change the world and because it can change you. You might be thinking, how can personal progress change anything? Let me tell you! A large portion of personal progress is doing service and helping other people. If all of the young women of the church were to complete their personal progress, think of all of the good deeds and light we would have shared in other people’s lives! Personal progress can bring happiness to others and even provide missionary opportunities. But personal progress isn’t just for others – it’s also for ourselves. Personal progress is designed to bring you closer to your Father in Heaven, strengthen your testimony, and recognize your divine nature and opportunities in this life. I have discovered that by doing personal progress, my mindset has begun to change from one of negative judgement to kindness - not just for those around me, but for myself. Personal progress obviously doesn’t make you perfect, but it brings you so much closer to the kind of person you are truly meant to be.

Next is because you’re so busy, and I think this is my favorite. I think what stops most young women from doing their personal progress is their mindset of I don’t have time. The issue isn’t that you don’t have enough time, it’s that you aren’t making the time. Somewhat fortunately, I was able to finish my personal progress a lot faster because I was sick for three months. But it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to finish your personal progress, only that you’re willing to do it. Even if you can only make the time to do personal progress for half an hour each week, take advantage of that. Make it a priority and you will find the time for it, whether you work on it every Sunday or you have three months where you’re doing absolutely nothing. Once you start doing personal progress, you will realize how important it is to make time for the things that really count. Not only that, but one of the main purposes of personal progress is to make your spiritual goals part of your everyday life. I think Sister Julie Beck said it best when she said, “The busiest girls use Personal Progress as a tool to accomplish what they most want to do. It brings your temporal and spiritual pursuits together. It shows you that what you do on the volleyball team or the chess club has a direct relationship with who you are as a daughter of God.” Not only should you be making time for personal progress, your time should already be spent doing things that would apply to it.

Then is because it leads you to the temple. I hope every young woman wants to ultimately be married in the temple someday. And while having your personal progress completed and your medallion earned isn’t a requirement to enter the temple, it will prepare you to go there. The temple is our ultimate goal, and personal progress is the course that will prepare us for the daily dedication it takes to get there. With personal progress, we will be all the more prepared for our futures.

And last but not least, because it can help you reach your dreams. Sister Elaine Dalton said, “This is what Personal Progress is really all about—being focused on good things, becoming a better person, feeling the Spirit, and being happy!” Personal progress is essentially making and accomplishing one small goal after another until you complete the entire thing. Doing personal progress will give you the attitude and strength to accomplish any goal and work towards making every dream come true. Personal progress doesn’t just end when you close the book, it stays with you for the rest of your life.

I would like to leave my testimony with you that I know personal progress is so important. It’s changed me so much for the better, and I know it can change every single young women who is willing to just open up her personal progress book and start. Take advantage of what you’re doing right now or what’s going on in your life and apply it to personal progress. Let Christ be your anchor and let personal progress be a part of your life. I know this gospel is true and I am so grateful for it. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

XOXO,
Savannah

Personal Progress Month

I hope you're curious about this from the title... Because I'm pretty excited about it!!

I was reading through a talk I gave almost a year ago, after I earned my young women's medallion. As I read it, I started to remember how passionate I was (am!) about personal progress, and how much I've lost that after completing the program! So, for somewhat selfish reasons, I decided that on here, March will be spent focusing on personal progress and the difference it has made/can make in each of our lives! I'll share LOTS of project ideas (I know how hard those can be sometimes!), Honor Bee ideas, reasons to love personal progress, little things you can do to make personal progress easier (but more meaningful!)... The list goes on! I was going to do a week, but then I decided there was just too much to fit in just 7 days. So here we are!

I really hope you're as excited about this as I am!! PERSONAL PROGRESS IS AMAZING!! Okay? Okay. Now let's have fun with this!!

(Also - hint, hint - you can totally pop your e-mail in that box over there to make sure you don't miss a single post, project idea, or inspiration! I highly recommend it(; )

XOXO,

Savannah