Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Finding peace in todays world

I know how stressful life is nowadays.  As we move closer to the end, Satan has taken control and Christian's find themselves under fire and stressed out.  We have to find peace and carry it with us.

1.  Read and study the scriptures daily.  Its a great way to start your day.  6 1/2 pages a day will allow you to read the entire Bible, Book of Mormon, D&C and pearl of great price each year.  Knowing the scriptures from daily study periods will help us to Know our Savior and know His Holy Spirit as it touches our life and guides us.

2  Prayer.  Deep personal prayer, family prayer, having a constant prayer in your heart as you go through the day.  Heavenly Father knows us and knows whats going on but it is up to us to let Him know how we feel we are doing and what we feel our needs are.  Open the door and you will find peace.

3.  Listening to good music and movies calms our spirit and helps us find peace.  You can know listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir 24/7 online free of charge:  http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/listen-to-music?lang=eng

4.   Change your perspective.  Focus on wonderfulness, ignore pettiness.  Focus on positive things.  Choose your attitude and take time to train your mind to always turn to positive thoughts.

5.  Realize that problems will always be there.  Throw all your problems into the problem bucket and deal with things on your own time as they come.  There will always be problems in the problem bucket but slow down and just deal with them as they come.   Its not ever what happens to us.  Its always how we react to what happens to us.

6.  Practice Positive Thinking.  Ask the right questions when dealing with problems.  Questions are often more valuable than answers.  Ask yourself "What is good about this?"  Change your perspective!

7.  Ask yourself the right questions!  What is good about this?  How can I do XXX and enjoy the process?  Your brain will figure out how to make it work.  Ask empowering questions!

8.  Its not about failure.  It's ALWAYS about getting back up.    Make your environment conducive to success.  You get in life what you focus on.  What ever you want, you must focus on it and then and only then will you achieve what you want.  

9.  Close your eyes and put your hands on your heart.  Focus on your heart and breathe slowly in.  Breathe deeply.  Slowly exhale.  Repeat 2 or 3 times and then slowly open your eyes.  This should act to slower your mind and body down.  Relax and move slower.

10.  Remember the scriptures you read each day and ponder them and pray about them.  Slowing down and dealing with things at a slower rate and prayer, pondering and scripture study will bring you peace to help you through the hard times.

Remember in Christ we can do all things.  Have faith and find peace.

Cherlynn


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Stocking stuffers

 I love Christmas! I love wrapping presents. I love decorating the house. I love baking cookies and special desserts. I love visiting friends and neighbors. I love writing Christmas cards. I love making up my special popcorn mixes and filling our cans with pop corn and party mixes. I love filling the stockings!

Today I thought I would share with you some of my ideas on filling the Christmas stockings. When I was growing up, our stocking was filled with special candies and fruit and little trinkets. I try to find small things that will be special and useful. So heres my list:

Toiletries
Tooth brushes/floss/cleaning tools
Gift cards
Make up
small toys/games (yes, even adults enjoy the right ones)
Nice socks
Flashlights
small notebooks
art supplies
nail polish
lip gloss/ chap sticks
Special food treats
Rolled money

In short, you want to find “small” “special” items and the list can be endless. I invite the rest of the family to add their small items to the stockings to. Every year someone shows up with a stocking stuffer that is to big for the stocking. Just keep in mind size matters. And have fun collecting! If you have lots of stockings to fill, you might want to get small bags with their names on them to fill so you can keep tabs on what all each person has. I like to wrap each item as I go and then they can't sneak a peek ahead of time. I also keep an eye out all year round for special small gifts to use as stocking stuffers. Some years I have a box full of items but I hardly traveled this last year so have nothing in my box this year. I'm so excited to go stocking shopping!

Have fun and make it special!
Cherlynn