January Goals I Completed

At the beginning of the year I made a post of the goals I plan to achieve this year. It was a busy month, but I'm happy to say that I did accomplish some of the goals for myself. I hope to get better and better with each new month.

Marriage Goals: Brent and I finally had a date together! Granted it was at home, and Train Lover was still awake, but it was a date nonetheless. Thanks to a sale from Hy-Vee, we both got a lot of Chinese food for less than $7. We love their Chinese food - who knew a grocery store could make good food? After we ate dinner we had a YouTube Karaoke night! Using my hairbrush as a microphone we took turns singing songs. We've done this date before and had a great time doing it and we got to enjoy it again.

I also read a marriage book this month entitled Becoming One: Intimacy in Marriage. It's a good read for all LDS people that are dating, close to getting married, and even those who have been married for awhile. It explains the differences between men and women, intimacy issues and concerns, and answers general questions most members of the church have before getting married. I read it shortly after we were married 3 years ago and enjoyed reading it again.

Personal Goals: I started two other books this month and will finish in the first week of February (I was close to finishing this month!)

Stand for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes was the book club book for the month. It is written by late prophet Gordon B. Hinckley. He writes about 10 virtues he feels have been neglected and put aside in our modern world and society, and what we can do to bring them back into our lives. I've enjoyed it so far and have learned a lot from it.

29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change your Life is a book I cannot put down. I started a few days ago and love it. It is about a woman diagnosed with MS and how she takes the advice of a spiritual leader and friend to give away 29 gifts in 29 days and the impacts it has on her life. I love the book and think it's really inspiring. I'm hoping to start my own 29 Gifts challenge soon. If any of you are feeling down about your life right now, I would encourage you to read this book.

Spiritual Goals: We had FHE every Monday this month! That is such a huge success for us. We have always struggled to have it. It's hard to do when it's just two people, and then you add a toddler and it gets more difficult. But I know it's important; that's why it's one of my goals this year to have FHE every Monday night.

For Christmas I got a planner. I've been using it every day to write down appointments, to do lists, and to keep track of praying and scripture study. I also printed out monthly and weekly FHE charts that I found on Pinterest and just changed the size of the image to fit in my planner. I cannot for the life of me now find where I got them from. I'll try to find them in case you want to use them too. Then I cut out the pages and glued them into the section in the back of my planner labeled 'Notes'. Now it's our year schedule for FHE. Brent and I came up with the following topics to focus on each month:

January - Church
February - Family History
March - Family (since #2 joins us this month)
April - Godhead (to focus on Easter)
May - Service
June - Joseph Smith (because he was martyred in June)
July - Emergency Preparedness
August - Scriptures
September - Prophets (to prepare for General Conference)
October - Prayer
November - Covenants (since we were married that month)
December - Christmas

Anyways, here is a look at our FHE plans for the month of January.

Here is one of the weeks lesson plans we had on Tithing.

I'm so glad I have goals to focus on this year and that I am working towards accomplishing some of them!