Alma 36:3

Priorities. It's all about priorities. Every day, I get to choose the person I'm going to be. I get to choose what I'm going to accomplish with my time that day. That's not to say that there isn't a certain way I should be, or things that I should do, only that I have a choice about whether or not I will do what I'm supposed to -- or whether or not I'll even find out what I am supposed to do.

Yesterday was a wonderful day, as the Sabbath often is. Frequently I heard the message that we all need to rely on the Spirit more. Each of us needs to approach our Father in humble prayer to learn His will, and we need to be sensitive enough to the promptings of the Spirit that we can recognize and act upon the answers when they come.

To that end, I'm making some changes in my life. They are changes that I have known about for some time now, but have been waiting on the Lord for the time to make them, and to make them known to others.

First and foremost, I'm changing schools. The Art Institute has been a wonderful place to learn, where I've earned several credits worth of education. However, it is very expensive and will not get me to where I want to be. Starting this Fall, I'll be attending Portland State University. The difference in tuition alone makes a huge difference, allowing me to attend without further student loan money, and even leaving me enough funds that I can pay back the loans I already have.

I'll also be changing my major. While I love Graphic Design, what I really want to do is run a business. I'll be majoring in Marketing and Human Resources, which will also make me eligible for financial assistance from my work.

Finally, I'm getting rid of my credit card. The Lord, through his Prophets today, has been very clear about unnecessary debt, and my credit card was definitely creating unnecessary debt. It was too easy for me to put purchases on that card, then completely forget about what I owed and treat it as if it didn't exist.

I feel like I was told to do much of this quite a while ago (although I wasn't sure about the business major until recently), but felt confused because I didn't feel right about making the changes immediately. I guess that maybe the Lord just needed to have me thinking about it so I would be willing to make the changes when the time came.

Along with all of this, though, are some important spiritual changes as well. I'm starting to understand what it truly means to "search the scriptures", a phrase I had started considering as I last updated this page. Since I've been home, I've followed the same reading schedule I had on my mission: a half-hour each morning with the Book of Mormon that gets me through the book roughly 3½ times per year. While I plan to continue studying scriptures for a half-hour each morning, it seems to me that I'd better spend the time really looking for principles and doctrines that will apply to what I am going through in my life right now, and then try to put that to use. It will require a lot of careful pondering and prayer, but I think it will be worth it.

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