Agency - Choice & Accountablility #3

I was recently given the opportunity to teach Sunday School to the 12-13 year olds at church. The lessons for the month of November were about Spiritual and Temporal self-reliance.  I got to teach lessons about finding answers to questions, making choices, and setting goals. As the teacher, I had to prepare to teach by reading the suggested scriptures and read or listen to the conference talks. It is true that the teacher always learns the most.  It has been great to review the topic of agency with my class and see how they get to apply it in their young lives.

I have also been struggling to teach Molly to be accountable and to choose to obey. She is only 4 but she can learn that their are consequences to her choices.  She loves to throw tantrums at the store when she wants something and doesn't want to hear me say "no" or "wait".  She is learning, hopefully, that when she acts calmly and accepts my answers to her requests she will be better off than when she demands something and then throws a tantrum when it doesn't go her way.  We end up walking out of stores to go sit in the car, quite often, until she can be calm and we can return to our errand. This is quite an uphill battle with Molly.

It is true that we have agency. We can behave in what ever way we wish. We just don't get to choose the consequences.  It is a blessing to be able to make choices. It was Satan's plan to force us to obey. We wouldn't have been able to make decisions on our own and therefore would never have learned what is right because we were never allowed to choose and see what came of those desisions. Agency is what allows us to grow and progress.  By having the freedom to make our own choices we control our own destiny or our own outcome.  Sure life isn't smooth sailing even for those that seem to do everything right. By having agency, even when there are struggles and difficulties in our lives, we get to make choices, we get to pick how we will react and proceed. It is all part of why we are here. We are being taught and tested to see if we can follow God even when there are many choices before us.

I love the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 82:10. I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say you have no promise. When I am obiedient and follow the laws given to us from the Lord then I get the promised blessings. I will have the spirit in my life to guide me, comfort me, and teach me. I will be happier when I choose good because I will be surrounded by virtuous, lovely and honorable people and things.  I will be able to avoid a lot of hardships by making good choices

I look at the faces of my Sunday school class. They look so young and yet they have so many important decisions ahead of them. So many choices they make everyday, even at so young an age, will affect the direction their life goes in future. I am really enjoying my new calling as Sunday School teacher. I love the new Come Follow Me program. I am only acquainted with the Sunday School portion and have only this one month of experience with it but I can already see that it is very inspired and needed. The young people today are faced with so many more temptations than I remember dealing with at their age. Maybe I lived a sheltered life in a small town but it just seems more important to teach and guide them to make good choices than ever before. We live in a world where everyone whats the good life and to what ever they want but don't want to accept the repsonsibility of those choices.  It is important to understand the concept of Agency and to realize that we are accountable for our choices.

Personal Progress - Getting Started - Choice and Accountability #2

Sophie turned twelve a few months ago and since about that time we have had the craziness of moving and settling into our new home. We recently attended the Young Woman in Excellence meeting in our new ward and it was so lovely to hear about the projects each girl has done. Sophie on the other hand didn't present because being so new to Young Woman and the Personal Progress program she hasn't worked on anything yet.

When I was 12-18 I worked on projects and even received my beehive medalian

and then my Miamaid medallian 

but never recieved my Laurel or Young Woman's medallian.

This is what it looked like in my day. 

I really like the new medallian

The temple, the beehive, the laurel leaves and the ruby (because a virtuous woman's price is above rubies.) all have such symbolic meaning and focus for a Young Woman. 

Since I never earned my medallian when young I figured I would start going through the program with Sophie and work on value projects and experiences as well.  Then I too can have the medalian for the program I failed to finish when I was younger.

It may seem like a strange place to start but Sophie and I are starting with the value Choice and Accountability. 

Faith may be listed first but we jumped into reading For the Strength of Youth and that is listed as one of the value experiences for Choice and Accountability so I figured we would work on that value first. I say we because that is what I decided to do and since I am the one prodding Sophie along I get to make that choice until she decides to tell me otherwise.

Not only are we supposed to read the pamphlet but we are to choose three of the principles to work on for three weeks and then discuss what we have learned with a parent or leader and write about it in our journals. Writing our thoughts in our journal figures into most of the experiences listed. I figured since my Mom reads my blog and this acts as my journal in many ways I would just write my thoughts here and report on my progress as I work through this program. 

So for Choice and Accountability experience #2, we have now read the pamphlet, I now need to pick three principles to work on for three weeks. I discussed this with my kids during our morning devotional time. We read through the pamphlet together so I figured we could come up with some ideas together and work on them as a family

Language - We do a lot of bickering and shout angry words at one another. When I get frustrated or overwhelmed I too loose my head and yell. We are going to try to be more calm and not let things get us so riled up that we have to use harsh words with one another.

Service - Simple everyday acts of kindness for other members of our family will do wonders for the atmosphere in our home. 

Work - I haven't yet established a new chore system since moving to our new house. I have just been giving the kids jobs as they come up or I end up doing whatever is needed. I should put together a new rotation and add in all the new chores that having a house has added to the load. 

So those are my three goals. The kids have agreed to do them as well. Hopefully we will see some improvement after our three week focus.