Welcome to my Personal Progress blog!
Personal Progress is a goal-setting and achievement program within the Young Women Organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm the first counselor in the YWs presidency in my ward, so among all the other stuff I get to do and the wonderful girls I get to be with, I also get to work on Personal Progress. I had the opportunity to work on PP when I was a teenager, but for some reason I just didn't do it. I got as far as my beehive award and just didn't see the point in finishing, besides getting a necklace. Well I have a few more years on me now and I think I've gotten a better idea of "the point."
Personal Progress is designed to help us strengthen our relationship with and faith in Jesus Christ. It helps us learn His teachings and apply them to our lives. We learn to set goals and follow through. We strengthen our families, present and future.
Earlier this year I was having a very hard time being alone. I hadn't lived with my husband for two years because a job that I hated. I was angry about all the things I couldn't have because of the Army. I was stressed and frustrated and VERY unhappy. I decided to focus more on my Personal Progress, and the program helped me straighten out my attitude. I can't say it was fast or easy or complete, but the goals I set while working on PP helped me change my attitude enough to remain relatively sane until Ben made it to Alaska. It helped me focus on serving others rather than complaining about my situation. My relationship with my Savior grew, and my testimony of His love for me.
One thing I haven't been so great about is keeping a personal journal. This is one of the requirements for completing Personal Progress. I have a binder where I keep a record of my progress, but the spaces for journal entries are small and I usually don't fill them. I have found with my other blog that I write a lot more about my faith than I do about anything else, and it is easier to write about it when I am sharing it with others. So here it is! I hope that by sharing my testimony and my faith-developing experiences I can help others strengthen their testimony, and just maybe help inspire some young women to work on personal progress.
On that note I have one final thing to add to this initial post. If you are the mother of a young woman, do personal progress with her! In the new program released earlier this year they made it so mothers can work along with their daughters and earn their Young Womanhood Recognition Award also! I think that is just absolutely wonderful! What an opportunity for you as women! It will tremendously benefit you, strengthen your relatiohnship with your daughter, and I can assure you that your daughter will be more interested in working on her personal progress than if you are just telling her to do it. This opportunity was not in place when I was a young woman, but if it was and my mom was doing it at the same time I was, I am sure that I would have gotten further with mine.
