A Blooper at the Oscars

How ironic to even think there was a blooper at the Oscars.

Yesterday Daniel and I sat down to watch the Oscars and we knew there had been a blooper kind of what had happened to Miss Universe a couple of years ago where they say the wrong winner. The irony of it all is that we are talking about the Oscars with a room full of people with big egos but the losers handled it fine. They had to do a Take Two! Talk about awkward!

Be the Best you can Be

Be the Best you can Be

2/27/17

“Sometimes you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be.”   -unknown.

 This past weekend was fabulous because it allowed me that time to sit back and remember exactly what and who I want to be. Elder Bednar and his wife Susan were visiting the Philippines for the past ten days. They left this morning. While they were here, they  spoke to us on a broadcast and in a Stake Conference. While he spoke I realized how important it is to have a direction in our lives.  To have a vision of where we are trying to go and what we hope to accomplish.  One of my favorite quotes is the quote from Alice in Wonderland where Alice has come to a fork in the road and she asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go.  Says Alice:

`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

`I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

`Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

 If we don’t have a vision for the future, then we have no idea of where to take our next step.  But if we can sit down and really think through the question “what do I want to be when I grow up?” (and I think this question applies to all of us, regardless of our age), and if we ask ourselves the question “what is the end result that I hope to achieve with my life?”, then we will find that our path on how to achieve that end result will become much more apparent to us and it will help us start to set goals in our lives that can lead us there.

Setting our goals is critical.  It is amazing to compare the lives of those who set goals in their lives against the lives of those who don’t set goals and just tend to go where the current takes them.  Is it any wonder that those people with goals and direction end up accomplishing so much more?   And it all begins with the simple act of writing those goals down.  Did you know that it’s said that less than 10% of people write their goals down?  And of those who do nothing more than simply write them down, their percentage of completing their goals is unbelievably high compared to those who didn’t.  I personally like to take my written goals and turn them into a visual goal poster.  One that includes pictures of the end results I am trying to accomplish. 

 I got this idea of a vision board from Cristi who had a post on How Does She the tittle of the blog post is “Dare to Dream” create a vison board. And like everything Cristi does, it’s amazing also it’s amazing what that vison board will do for your life.  Trust me. It works!

 And most of all, we need to decide the type of human being we want to be, our personal values we want to reflect.  A person of integrity.  A person of grace.  A person of love.  A person of virtue.  A person of…the list can go on and on, but it’s important to make that list for yourself and then evaluate how you are sizing up to the person you most want to be.   And yes, I do have a picture of a mansion in my goal poster because I love investing in nice homes and someday I hope I live in one beautiful home. Here is a quote for you

   “Be the Type of Person You Want to Meet”

 Yes, taking time to remind ourselves of who we are and who we want to be is one of the most therapeutic things we can do toward helping ourselves to become the best ‘us’ we can be.   I personally found that I still have a lot of things I need to work on to become my best self, but at least I have a list of what to work on and I have my set of goals to help get me there.  So at least I can be walking in the right direction. Elder Bednar gave us so much good council this past weekend but if I want to summarize it in one sentence he told us to make sure "we are becoming a better person today than what we were yesterday and a better person tomorrow than what we are today."

With love,

Vero

My favorite Stake Conference

I attend the Makati Stake and lucky for us, Elder Bednar chose to speak in that Stake today. It was the best talk I have ever heard. He spoke to those in the audience not of our faith and it was amazing.

Visit of Elder Bednar

Visit of Elder Bednar

 We had the visit of Elder Bednar last week where we had him come to do a broadcast for us. The meeting was broadcasted to the 96 Stakes in the Philippines. He likes to use the format of questions and answers from people who submitted them and from the audience.

The meeting lasted for two hours.  There were a number of questions asked so I will get to two questions this time around and do the rest some other time. With Elder Bednar was his wife, Susan and the Area President and his wife. (The Bowens)

First Question: How can I press forward in faith when my faith is shaky and I feel God is far away?

Elder Bednar: We need to understand what faith in the Lord Jesus Christ really is… President Packer has stated: “There is faith that makes things happen, and there is faith to accept things that can not be changed;  and we need to have both.” Faith is always focused in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is always linked to the Savior. Faith is the principle of action and the power in all intelligent beings. We need to understand that there is a sequence first, we act in accordance with the teachings of Christ then we are blessed to receive the power of His spirit. Faith is a principle of action, pressing forward is faith. The opposite is fear which is a principle of inaction. It’s o.k. to feel a little shaky as long as you are pressing forward. Is when we stop when we are in trouble. The Savior said: “Look unto me, in every thought don’t doubt fear not.” Doubt is disbelieving, doubt is cynical. To have questions is not doubt, but to have disaffirming doubt is a spiritual problem. As we press forward, as we are acting that is faith we have questions along the way, that is fine. We seek to resolve those questions. We ask, we seek, we knock. All these are action words. So we do the simple things, the Savior says, and sometimes we may encounter trouble. The question is, will we stop or press forward? Keep pressing forward in the things you know you should do.

Sister Bednar: What came to mind is the talk President Eyering gave some time ago where he asks this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch me today or my children or my family and he said he writes down every night the answer to that question in his journal. I have tried this and it’s a wonderful way where you feel the presence of the Lord every single day. That is one way you can make sure he doesn’t feel far away.

Sister Bowen: God never moves away from us. If you are feeling far away is our responsibility to move toward him. If you look for those blessings bestowed upon you will realize that he is not that far from you and if you show gratitude that brings you closer to the Lord.

Elder Bowen: Marion G. Romney said: When he feels distancing from His Father in Heaven he submerges in the Book of Mormon. When we have those feelings we pray, we study the Book of Mormon. All that is unfair in life can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Life is not fair and we need to know that we are not being punished. As I try to get near to Him, He gets near to me. Again remember what Elder Packer taught: Faith himself There is faith that makes things happen and there is faith to accept things that are not going to change.

How can I feel peace and receive forgiveness for my mistakes?

Sister Bednar: I think that we can feel forgiveness when we know we have tried to repent. Every week when we take the sacrament we can remember how glorious and good our Savior Jesus Christ is to us. He grants that forgiveness when we repent and we can be reminded of it each week when we partake of the sacrament.

Elder Bednar: I wish I could visit with this person because the word in the question is mistakes and mistakes are normal. Mistakes are not sins. If we have a Gospel attitude as we press forward we will make lots of mistakes and they provide tremendous opportunities for us to learn. None of us want to make mistakes, we don’t want to learn from mistakes but yet we can be blessed to learn from mistakes that we make. In our Church callings we all do things wrong, we make mistakes when we are conduction a meeting, we may misspeak when we are teaching a lesson that quite normal. But if we beat ourselves up and think that somehow there is something is wrong with us, frankly we are quite normal. The Church is a laboratory for the perfecting of the Saints, not for the Perfect Saints. And we practice on each other and sometimes we make mistakes. So I think we can feel peace and forgiveness if we are seeking the help of the Holy Ghost to learn from some of the things that we do that are not quite perfect. If is a sin, then we have a responsibility to recognize the sin and repent and I want to make one observation about repentance. We always talk about the R’s of repentance we are to recognize the sin feel remorse of the sin and we are to make restitution. But the most important R is not on that list. Redeemer! Repentance is not simply changing our behavior; repentance is relying upon the Lord as we seek forgiveness and then strive to improve but we can’t do that without the Savior and Redeemer. There are people who demonstrate tremendous determination and will power and they change their behavior That is not repentance. It is repentance when we have violated one of the commandments, we recognize the sin, we feel sorrow and we acknowledge and recognize our total dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ to be rehabilitated from that sin. The word repent means to turn again to the Lord. When we sin we turn away from Him when we repent we turn back to him, that is what produces peace in forgiveness is turning to Him not simply changing our behavior but relying on him to be changed so that ultimate we have no disposition to do evil.

Elder Bowen: What if I have repented and fallen back on doing the same thing, When do I become unforgivable?

Elder Bednar: Never, you just keep pressing forward, this is going back to the first question, what if my faith feels shaky. What is faith?  a principle of action and we are to press forward. I love the imagery in 2 Nephi of pressing forward with the steadfastness in Christ what is the opposite of faith? stopping in action we hope that there is an increment of improvement each time we start to get a little better and overcome the sin. But we never stop we are always capable of being forgiven. What is the alternative? You stop and you don’t repent? that is not a good alternative there is no peace and happiness in that!  Knowing we can have the Lord to press forward to me is the great source of hope because we have his help.

Elder Bowen: would you say that two tools of Satan that would be opposite of that would be doubt and fear? I doubt myself, I fear…

Elder Bednar: “Look unto me” He said “in every thought, doubt not, fear not.” Doubt is negative doubt is cynical, doubt is disbelieving, not questioning disbelieving so He said don’t doubt He didn’t say don’t question and fear not faith is action in accordance with the teachings of Christ fear is inaction.

Prior to this meeting we had dinner with him and afterwards we were able to sit around a conference table where he asked the people in the room to ask him more questions. I felt very touched when he bore His testimony and I felt of his love and concern for the Filipino people.

He went home after a stake conference he attended on Sunday. I will write again in two weeks because next week we are going to be in Sydney Australia attending a cluster meeting with Bishop Waddell. I always wanted to go to Australia and that time is now. Yay!

Con amor,

Vero

It's Friday!

Thank Goodness it's Friday! I love, love, Fridays because it is the time when we get to go out on a date or have pizza or watch a movie. There are a few movies we want to watch because they were made from good novels that we read on our book club or as a school assignment once upon a time.

I made a list to see if we found them on the internet:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Charlottes Web by E. B. White
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Passage To India by E. M. Foster
The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Little Women by Lousa M. Alcott
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Guilder's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Last of the Mohicans

We decided to watch the Last of the Mohicans because once in Puerto Rico we waited for the movie to start at a cable channel not knowing that the movie was made in 1910 and it was not only black and white but silent. There were drawings and signs that told somewhat the story. Unbelievable to think what the cinema looked like 100 years ago. This time it was in full color and very well made.

Con amor,
Vero

Can I trust you?

Harvard Pychologist, Amy Cuddy wrote "Presence" A book about first impressions and I agree. We want people we can trust around us.

People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating?

Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and has discovered patterns in these interactions.

In her new book, "Presence," Cuddy says that people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you:

Can I trust this person?

Can I respect this person?

Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence, respectively, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both.

Interestingly, Cuddy says that most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor. After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.

But in fact, warmth, or trustworthiness, is the most important factor in how people evaluate you.

"From an evolutionary perspective," Cuddy says, "it is more crucial to our survival to know whether a person deserves our trust."

It makes sense when you consider that in cavemen days it was more important to figure out if your fellow man was going to kill you and steal all your possessions than if he was competent enough to build a good fire.

Cuddy's new book “Presence”explores how to feel more confident.

Amazon

But while competence is highly valued, Cuddy says that it is evaluated only after trust is established. And focusing too much on displaying your strength can backfire.

She says that MBA interns are often so concerned about coming across as smart and competent that it can lead them to skip social events, not ask for help, and generally come off as unapproachable.

These overachievers are in for a rude awakening when they don't get a job offer because nobody got to know and trust them as people.

Cuddy says:

If someone you're trying to influence doesn't trust you, you're not going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because you come across as manipulative.  A warm, trustworthy person who is also strong elicits admiration, but only after you've established trust does your strength become a gift rather than a threat.

I like the fact that I am usually surrounded by people I can trust 100% starting with Daniel.

Con amor,

Vero