Day 3 Goals and accomplishments

Goals....I feel like that is the buzzword of my life.  In my patriarchial blessing it talks about how I will "reach all of my righteous goals"  I just need to "work hard" and "Put Jesus Christ first".  THis is a fabulous blessing, but I struggle with it a bit.  First of all, what is a righteous goal?  Even if it's something good, it can be bad if the motivation isn't pure ie seeking praise of the world rather than real accomplishment.  Anyway, what I've come down to is that the most righteous goal I can have is to have all of my kids gain a testimony and to be good citizens. I know I don't really have full control over that, but I can do my best to have the "finest gospel home"  and teach my children to love God and to serve him.  I listened to a talk today by Elder Whitney Clayton entitled Finest Homes.  I think it was one I probably slept through the first time I heard it, but I loved listening to it today and actually I listened to it yesterday as well.  One of my favorite quotes is "From the Lord's perspective, estblishing the finest homes has everything to do with the personal qualities of the people who live there.  These homes aren't made fine in any important or lasting way by their furniture or by the net worth or shocial status of the people who own them.  The finest characteristic of any home is the image of Christ reflected in the home's residents.  What matters is the interior design of the souls of the inhabitants not the structure itself. " He further goes on to talk about how we must reevaluate and renovate ourselves regularly to be Part of the finest homes.  Anyway, my large lifetime goals are to return to Heavenly Father with my children, but that is kind of a large abstract goal.  I need lots of little small attainable goals that help me reach that one ultimate goal.

When I was in college, I knew that I probably wouldn’t work outside the home.  I knew of course to be prepared for everything, you never know what life will throw at you, but I also knew that I really wanted be home for my kids.  I decided to pursue education because of how well it works with family life in the event that I would need to go to work.  I was really interested in teaching English as a second language because of my experiences with the many migrant workers that lived in our community.  There was definitely a huge divide between the migrants and others in our community and the biggest stumbling block was language.  I am really interested in language and how we can build unity in our communities through efforts to understand one another.  So I got my degree in Spanish teaching and teaching English as a second language.  I taught a few esl classes in New York from my house to Chinese speakers.  These were mainly conversational.  I also worked on my Spanish with my good friend Alicia Zambrano.  In Texas, Idaho, and Connecticut I really didn’t have time to do anything with my career goals/ambitions.  In Las Vegas, I was able to volunteer in the English classes for Cuban refugees for Catholic Charities.  I went once a week for 3 hours.  It was great.  I really liked it.  It was also interesting to hear the stories of those who had “escaped” to the US and to see how programs like that worked.  There were many flaws, but many successes for those who worked hard and wanted to succeed.  I really enjoyed that work and hope to be able to return to it sometime.

In England I tried hard to find something to do with refugees but was mainly unsuccessful.  I did have the seminary students make blankets that were then sent to France for the refugee camp there, and I did transport a van full of donations from a mosque in London to a charity outside of London so that they could get transported to France.  Those were the only times I did very much though.  However I did have a few Chinese ladies that I ministered to.  I helped one when she became homeless get into a new home and tried to help her renew her residency status.  It was pretty complicated though and we also worked on some English.  I enjoyed this, but was very unfamiliar with all the red tape involved in getting government help for the needy.  This led me to become interested in social work as well as English.

Here in Japan, my goals are to learn Japanese, get better at the piano, and get my diabetes/health under control.  I am taking a Japanese class once a week and I use duolingo pretty regularly.  I need to get into a better routine so that I study everyday.  But at the least I am meeting once a week for 45 minutes to study japanese.  I’m also trying to be a more consistent piano practicer.  Also, eating better and exercising.  I’m actually pretty good at the exercising.  I do it first thing in the morning which helps me get it done.  I try and practice in the evenings when the kids are cleaning up for dinner, but sometimes this is hard because Adam is just ready for bed and right now Justin has late nights every other day.  I’m just throwing Japanese in whenever...that’s why its not taking off perfectly.  Eventually when things go back to normal after corona, I hope to go to the English class that the elders teach to the Japanese people.  I went and helped once and it was great.  I’m also hoping to take over sister Jensen’s job which was to teach the kid’s English class while the adults are having their meeting.  Sort of a hybrid primary/nursery/school class.  I think I would really enjoy it.  And the timing would work with Adam.  I’ve looked a little into teaching English online, but haven’t found the right thing so far.

How’s that for a long weird rambly post about goals.  As for accomplishments, I was happily surprised the other day when I decided to run for PTO secretary that I actually had some things to write down as accomplishments.  Honestly it really helped build my self esteem to realize that I have accomplished some things while raising my family.  It was mostly callings I’ve held or volunteer work, but I know those things were hard and have a lot of merit and do good in the world so I was very proud to write them down and feel them as accomplishments.  This included primary president, young women’s president, cub master, bear leader, wolf leader, seminary teacher.  I think sometimes it’s good for me to remind myself of the value that these positions have in society.