Becoming a Better Me

So a couple months ago (a.k.a. almost 6)  Julie B. Beck came and spoke to the women of our church.  She has now been released as the leader of the women's organization of our church called the Relief Society.

 It was a challenge for me to attend.  I was struggling with myself a lot and I was going through the trials of figuring out that Weston wasn't getting enough food.  I look back now and realize that I think I was in some postpartum depression... not heavy, but a little.  But I'm grateful for friends who invited me to go with them and made feel like someone cared if I was there.

While there, Julie B Beck said some things that just rang out in my head and heart, and I realized I wanted to change.   Here is what I heard:
1) We are living the dream.  We believe that before this life we chose to come here... we wanted to come here to this earth to have these trials and experiences.  Thus we are living the dream and we need to love it!

2) In our church we get assignments of other women to go visit once a month and share a lesson by the leaders of our church.  It's kinda like have two people assigned to be your friend.  Which sounds lame until you are in desperate need of help and you automatically have two people who are happy and willing to help you, because you are their assignment.  I think its the greatest thing ever.  She told us to focus more on the needs of our women versus visiting them with a lesson.
For instance in my case, the women assigned to me helped get me meals and someone to help me clean my house the week I came home with a broken arm.  They didn't have to do the work, they just made sure my needs were taken care of.  I am so grateful for that.
But on the flip side, I need to be better at being in tune with the women I am assigned to need.  I have one amazing friend here who just manages to always be more thoughtful and know exactly what you need.  So as I was trying to be better at this, my thought was, what would she do... (kinda like what would Jesus do)... and an idea came to mind, so I did it.

3) Generous thoughts are never unwelcome.  No one is ever going to dislike someone being generous to them.  So we should never ignore a generous thought.  This is a big change for me.
Over the last few years we've had some different circumstances that made me and Matt take on too much.  Then we took a step back and needed to evaluate what we were giving to others because we could see it was affecting us individually and our marriage.  Looking back some of the problem was our attitude, some of it what the way it all happened.  Either way we were bitter and didn't want to reach out to others very much. 
Since we moved we agreed as a couple we wanted to be better people.  We've met some amazing people in this world that I think so highly of, and I would like to try to be more like them.  So as I listened to a horrendous story of Sister Beck's (we call each other brother and sister in our church) talking about packing up hungry small children in a car because she felt she needed to help another... I realized that there are times I have ignored those generous thoughts, thinking that surely being a young mother is a hard thing and I couldn't drop everything to go help.  But really, I should!  The Lord needs us to help one another and we need to listen in the moments that he prompts us to do it... regardless of the small children and their struggles.
 That right there made me realize that I could be generous.  I could help others.  Because I too have received help.

I'm sharing this not to get pity thoughts or anything.  Mostly because this my journal for now and also because I want to let others know that this is hard, but we should try to help one another out and serve each other.  Because if we lighten others loads, our load will be lighten also, and we'll all make it together!  So starting in March of 2012 I vowed to be better, better to myself and to others.  I was going to stop feeling sorry for myself and starting looking at others and how I could help.  I'm still not perfect and still do not feel like I am very thoughtful all the time.  But I am trying, which is more than I was doing before.