Saturday, February 26, 2011

Hold The ROPE!

I really loved this week's classes and the things we learned and the activities we did! For my entire life, I have always been a member of a team and to me there is nothing more fulfilling than being successful as a team.
In high school, I had the opportunity to play on many sports teams including soccer, basketball, and track! In basketball we were back-to-back state champions. The first year we won state, our theme of the tournament was "Hold the Rope." It was a story of trust, team work, and commitment. The story goes somewhat like this:
If you were dangling off a cliff and the only thing you had between you and death was a rope, who would you want holding on to the other end? You would want someone you trust. Someone you know would never let go and would do anything to make sure you made it to safety.
We then went on to compare this to our team and how we could trust anyone on our team to hold the end of the rope. How we knew that together we could do anything. That year we went undefeated and made friendships that will last a lifetime.

This experience has taught me a lot. I have learned the value of working together as a team and how everyone has to have a common goal in mind in order to be successful. As I try and apply these things I have learned from past experiences and also from the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, I think the one aspect I want to work hardest on is trust!
I strongly believe that trust is the foundation that every interaction is based on. If I can build the trust of the sisters in my ward, then maybe I can be able to better help them and their needs. This week I will look for little ways to serve the sisters in my ward and better build their trust!
HAVE A VERY HAPPY WEEK!!!!!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Me? Conflicts? Never!

First of all, just a quick update on my goal from last week! I had a chance to meet with a sister in my ward that had asked me a few questions and needed help with a few things. It was awesome. And in the long run, she ended up helping me find a few of my talents and she completely made my day. It is always amazing to me how serving others can bless my life so much.
So this week we talked about something that is a little hard for me and is something that I will work to improve: CONFLICT. First of all, when it comes to arguments, for the most part I am a very passive person. If it is not a topic I am extremely interested in, I would rather just let the other person be right. On Monday we discussed ways that we can solve conflict. I'm not going to lie, I am not very good at confronting people. I am way too afraid that I will hurt someone's feelings and I really don't like doing that.
On Wednesday we participated in little skits where we had a problem and then had to figure out how to solve it. I realized that in my leadership role as Relief Society president one of the problems that I often face is girls not wanting to do their Visiting Teaching. One thing I chose to do at the beginning of the semester (when the girls were getting new assignments) was to pair girls who didn't always do their VT with girls who had always been valiant in completing it. This is one approach to conflict resolution: fix the problem before it can even be started.
My goal for this next week is to find a girl who is not doing her VT and offer to do anything I can to help... even if it includes me going with her to get it done. That way they will see that I really do care about all of the sisters in my ward.
Well, I hope this week goes well and that I am able to solve a few problems. I will continue to work on being more confident in confronting people but always doing it in a kind way.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Man in the Mirror

This week we learned about some very valuable things to me! On Monday we were taught about how to find the best qualities we have as leaders and then to make the best out of those qualities. This is valuable because I think that many people focus too much on their faults. This benefits no one; it just brings others down. We also took a quiz on line that told us what personalities and traits we had. For the most part it was quite accurate.
One of the qualities it said was that I am like the "mother." This is so ironic because everywhere I have gone, people have pegged me to be a mother. On all of the sport teams I played on in high school, people always looked to me as mom.. I just really like to take care of others. When I arrived at BYU, after a few weeks of living with my new roommates, we all were given roles in the home. Yes, I was pegged as the mother of the apartment.
Back to the topic of finding our best qualities and then perfecting them, I found that this was a great tool that I can use in my leadership role. As Relief Society President, I often find myself and others comparing themselves to others. It is hard at BYU because everyone is the best at EVERYTHING! Everyone can sing, play 5 instruments, has a 4.0, can cook, and basically seems perfect. But in reality, no one is that good at everything. I need to work harder to find what I am good at and then expound on it. I think that when my ward starts to do this, we will become closer together and be very successful because we can build off of eachother.
This week, my goal is to find two people that look like they are having a hard day or are down on themselves and then go talk to them and help them find how talented they really are. All of the girls in my ward are beautiful inside and out. I think one of my talents is helping others to feel good about themselves. So as I try to strengthen my talent, I hopefully will be encouraging them to look at the "man in the mirror" and find the best of who they really are.
Its going to be a GREAT week! :)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Service

This week has been an especially wonderful one!!! Full of service and lots of smiles. I loved Monday's lecture where we were taught how to integrate leadership into all aspects of our lives. I learned a lot on how Divine-Centered leadership is not just for religious things in our life but EVERYTHING! Wednesday's class was by far my favorite so far. We had the opportunity to go out and serve people on campus for about 20 minutes and it was a blast!!! I love to see people smile.

This week in my RS calling, I plan to work harder on the simple acts of service. I learned that by just bringing a smile to someone's face we are doing an act of service. If nothing else, I hope to be able to bring smiles to all around me. That is my goal for this week!