Year End Review

Last year, I set the goal to do 1,000 small acts of kindness.  If you've read throughout the year, you'd know that I did try - and I think I did achieve my goal despite the fact that everything wasn't recorded.  I am really glad I set the goal.  I think as much as I was inspired by my aunt and uncle in setting the goal, I was even more enriched and fortified in doing so.  I am definitely a better person for the little acts of service I was able to offer the world.

I have a little over a half an hour left before the clock starts again on another year of my life, and this year, I hope to continue to be someone who serves others but my focus will be a little different.  This year I am inspired by my mission president.  You know, he genuinely loved all of us so much.  He was genuinely Christ-like in the way he treated us.  I remember there was one sister who drove us all crazy.  We were talking about her one day, and he defended her.  He discouraged any ill speaking of her without being judgmental, without any lecturing, by simply being his kind-hearted self.  You definitely got the sense that he genuinely cared for her.  I was impressed by this quality of his.  And post mission, as I've talked with other people who served with me, there is story after story of how patient and kind he was with us and the weaknesses and shortcomings he couldn't help but find in us.  I would really like to be more like that.  There was a time in my life when I could be completely trusted in what I said about others.  I would like to get back to that point.

I realized when I saw the Mona Lisa for the first time that life is not about things like that.  It is the epiphanies and things that you experience that change you for the better that are what life is really about.  So many times those moments will never become Facebook posts, but they will be the type of things you talk to your family about during late night talks that expose your heart, and you for what you really are.  Those are your truths, and they are critical things. 

I would write more about these, but it is nearly midnight and I'm too tired to write about them. But this is my personal new years eve.  This coming year will hopefully bring more growth as a person and hopefully I can offer more good to the world.