personal progress - divine nature value experience #2

several weeks ago, our mia maid class decided to work together on divine nature value experience #2 for our class activity.

here are the requirements for divine nature #2:

As a young woman you are blessed with divine feminine qualities. Increase your understanding of and appreciation for womanhood. Read Proverbs 31:10–31 and two talks on womanhood from a conference issue of the Church magazines. Review what “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” says about being a wife and a mother. Then ask your mother or another mother you admire what she thinks are important attributes for being a mother. List the attributes in your journal. Then choose one of those attributes and strive to develop it. After two weeks report your success to a parent or leader.

to prepare for our night, our class presidency reminded each girl to bring her scriptures, personal progress book, and if possible, her mother to young women's with her.  they were also encouraged to bring a copy of a recent conference talk on womanhood.

also in preparation for our activity, i made copies of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" that were small enough to fit in each girl's study journal.  i also, printed copies of a few conference talks for each girl booklet style so that they could be glued into the binding of their study journals. 

i brought copies of these talks:

find talk here

find talk here

find talk here

at our activity we had big plans to discuss with the mothers what attributes they felt were important for motherhood, read the proclamation, and separate into groups to read the conference talks.  the girls would then decide which attributes they would like to work on for the next two weeks and we'd review with them in a couple of weeks.

we started with talking to the moms who came about the attributes they felt were important.  many of the girls took notes while they spoke.  then we started reading the family proclamation.  we each took turns reading a paragraph.  i asked the girls to stop whoever was reading when they felt like we had read an attribute of motherhood.  it was a little slow going at first - i felt like i was the only one stopping their reading to point out an attribute, but after a little bit the girls seemed more comfortable and started pointing them out on their own.  the girls brought up some great questions and we were lucky enough to have a member of the bishopric pop-in and join our discussion.  we were having such a great discussion that before we knew it our time was up!

i quickly distributed the copies of the conference talks that i had brought and went over the remainder of the value experience requirements with them to work on at home.

i finished the rest of the requirements on my own as well.

i read proverbs 31:10-31 and wrote the attributes of a wife an mother that i felt like they were talking about and wrote them in my study journal.

i read through the conference talks and marked what i felt was important relating to my role as a wife and mother.

one of my favorite quotes from Elder Holland's talk:

then i picked an attribute that i wanted to strive to develop for the next two weeks.  i chose to try and focus on, as Elder Holland put it, to "show others, including your children, the same caring, compassionate, forgiving heart you want heaven to show you..."  i also wrote a few ways that would help me in trying to develop this attribute.

i wish that i could say that i did stellar with my goal and that i accomplished it with no problems.  not so!  i've said it before, and i'll say it again. whenever i try harder to better myself, satan ALWAYS ups the ante.  that is not a reason to give up and i haven't, it just going to take a little longer than two weeks to get it right.  but i have had moments of clarity and times when i was able to listen to the spirit speaking inside me, instead of reacting with my "natural man" instincts.  it's all about PROGRESS!  it is after all called personal progress.