We missed you...What you missed

If you were unable to attend our Relief Society meeting on Tuesday evening, we missed you. It was a great and informative meeting and I wish you could have shared it with us. When Bishop issued the call of Relief Society President to me, after a few moments of panic, some thoughts came very clear to my mind. The first were about counselors and board members. The second thought was that we, as a Relief Society, need to work on becoming self-reliant; financially, spiritually, physically, and temporally. I thought of the scripture in Doctrine & Covenants 88:118-119, and that these 4 areas made up the floors of our "house." Tuesday night's meeting was what I called "a quick tour" of these floors. I'm adding a few of the notes that were taken during the tour. I hope they whet your appetite for future meetings as we strive to Get Our Houses in Order.

Temporal (food-storage):

•   Begin with BASIC (3 months), then go on to LONG TERM (1 year) and if you've got all that and are rotating then get an EMERGENCY (72 hour) kit together.
•   Budget money each month for food storage, if you just can't afford it in your budget then do the spare change method. Take a jar and every evening dump your spare change into the jar. At the end of the month take the change and purchase something for your food storage, an extra can of vegetables, bag of beans/rice, whatever. The important part to remember is don't spend that money on anything but food storage!

 Physical: 

• Schedule an hour each day that is for you to walk or go to the gym or work out at home. Whatever it is, stick to it and although you don't want to in the beginning, you'll feel better and better about yourself after you have. If you take that hour for you, you will have the time you need for everything else. 
• Water! Drink it all the time. It will reduce the desire to drink soda or anything else and it will help everything inside move as it should. Water is very necessary to our well-being and staying (or getting) fit.

 Financial:

• First and foremost is always pay your tithing.
•  Income 
• get and  keep up on whatever training you need to stay on top of your job/career
•   Insurance
• Retirement and Savings
• don't rely on anyone but yourself for your retirement savings
• you should work towards having 3-6 months of income in savings for emergencies.
•  Debt-do all you can to get out of it.
• The Church has said there are 4 reasons that justify going into debt:
1.  Mortgage on an AFFORDABLE home
2.  Education or training to support yourself and family
3. A WISE business plan
4.  An AFFORDABLE automobile
• But that said we should be working to pay off these debts as soon as we can.

Spiritual: How can we bring and keep the Spirit in our homes? We strive to be disciples. (disciple-knows and does more)(strive-work in progress)

•     Scripture Study-Persist it may not be easy but it is important. 
•           Family Home Evening-Be consistent. Rotate lessons and wholesome FAMILY activities for interest
•         Prayer-Insist on it. 
•         Bear testimony to each other-Bear it, Mean it, Live it 
•         The following ideas about having a spiritual home came from a Senior Seminary class:
•   Family Dinner
•       Have a clean house
•      Regulate the Media "You can't play in the mud and not get dirty" be careful what comes into your home through TV, music, internet etc.
•     Show love
•     Respect each other
•     Talk to each other