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Showing posts with label tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tips. Show all posts

3.10.2015

finding media that won't kill your spirit...

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So I know that I really worried about coming home and getting back into entertainment and things, because you know... I hadn't experienced a lot of that in the field. I remember thinking before I left that it was going to be super hard not to listen to my favorite bands, or read secular literature, or watch great new movies. Once I got out... I realized how distracted all of those things would have made me. I was grateful that my mission president restricted music to the good ol' MoTab and hymns, because I realized how easily and quickly a good song took my focus.


Once I actually got home, I was really excited to get back into things (music, especially), but wanted to do it relatively slowly, and I wanted to make sure that I was choosing wholesome media (if you're not quite sure what I mean, check out what the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet says about entertainment and music.), and I worried that it would be difficult.

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Because I was no longer used to secular entertainment, the first couple of things I watched/listened to were kind of a shock to my system (an extreme example happened when I watched my first movie. When I heard the score begin, literally right at the beginning of the movie, I shed tears. This huge wave of emotion just hit me... The movie was Frozen. Totally irrational.), but I as the shock subsided I realized that I had become more sensitive to how entertainment and media make me feel.


I remember sitting at work, probably mid-November, listening to a Radiohead station on Pandora. I was reading a book or something (I was working as a receptionist) and started to tune it out a little bit as I focused more on whatever it was I was doing. Something started to bring me out of that focus. I couldn't figure it out at first, but it didn't feel right. As I became more and more distracted by the feeling, I realized that it was my music. It was making me uncomfortable. I started listening to the lyrics to see if there was something I'd heard that was inappropriate but the longer I listened the more I realized that the lyrics were probably the least of the problem. The beat, the melody, the instrumentation... The combination of them all. I started to feel physically ill, and finally turned it off.
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I sat in silence for a few minutes, pondering what had just happened. I'd experienced it a couple of times before, but I hadn't let it get so far before. My sisters wanted me to watch an action movie week after I got home and I didn't last 5 minutes before leaving the room because of the feeling the violence gave me. This time I'd let it go further and it left me feeling sick to my stomach - all I could think was, "The Spirit is gone."



While this post has mostly been about my experience with finding uplifting media since being home, This absolutely applies to future missionaries, and anyone else for that matter! I plan on doing a series about finding good media, but wanted to preface it with this, because I want you all to remember that the Spirit is the greatest tool we have in our search for uplifting entertainment. He will tell you when it's not okay. I urge everyone reading this to heed those promptings. Follow those feelings! Don't let yourself build any walls against the Spirit - we become more in tune to his whispering when we follow his counsel. And oh boy do we need his help!

--Kira


Stay tuned for a series of posts on the uplifting entertainment that I have found, as well as how and where I've found it!

1.08.2015

5 tips for a returned missionary

Well, I’ve been home for almost two months! Time flies here just like it does in the mission field. Adjusting to so-called “normal life” is hard and awkward, but can be so great! I have gathered 5 tips from my short experience as an RM and from advice from other RMs. SOOO without further ado…


 1.      The big three! You preached it for a 1 1/2 -2 years so DO IT! Daily prayer, daily scripture study (emphasis on Book of Mormon) and weekly church attendance.

Your first weeks home may be hectic but do WHATEVER IT TAKES to accomplish these 3 things. JUST DO IT! As a missionary your entire morning is dedicated to the Lord so it’s hard to forget to pray and to read scriptures, at home it’s harder. Make time, set goals, wake up at a decent time and go to 3 hours of church! 



2.      Talk to people. This was the key in the mission field so why not now?

From the grocery store to the singles ward to your parents' house, TALK! And who knows, maybe it’ll lead to a gospel conversation. Gospel conversation=missionary work!! This has been the biggest key to my day to day happiness. 



3.      I love to see the……..TEMPLE ATTENDANCE, I’m going there every week…

This one is easy to cut out, but you have been deprived of the temple so go and go often.
“And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.” -1 Ne 18:3 


4.      Okay, okay don’t hate. Keep an agenda, set weekly and daily goals, and accomplish them!

The biggest breakdowns I would have when I initially came home were when I knelt down to pray at night realizing that I didn’t have much or anything to bring to the Lord. I couldn’t review my work with Him because I didn’t feel that I had done anything. Setting goals and accomplishing them helps a lot!
“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” (Elder M. Russel Ballard, Preach My Gospel, 146)


5.      Write in your journal!

Guilty. After coming home I didn’t touch my journal and wasn’t planning on it. But I was struggling and I met with one of my old companions and she suggested I write all my feelings and realizations down in my journal. I did and it was amazing! It was healing and became a source of revelation. If possible do it errrday!

 “I haven’t written for a few days, because I wanted first of all to think about my diary. It’s an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I—nor for that matter anyone else—will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart” (Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl [1952], 2).

OBVIOUSLY, there are many more ideas to ease the adjustment period. There are surely more steps to come but I know that these steps help! Good luck!


-Chelsea


P.S. Read this talk! The Returned Missionary



What things have helped you or friends to adapt your surroundings to you? Have these tips worked for you? Let us know in the comments!