Skip to main content

Personal Constitution


This year's "Standard of Truth" or "Armor Up!"

In Alma chapter 46, verses 12-13, we read about Moroni.  He was the captain of the Nephite Army and he created a mission statement f or the Nephites. It reads, "And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole. And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land—“

Each year on back to school night, we have a fancy dinner and my husband Philip gives the children a Father’s blessing for the start of the new school year.  We begin the night by writing our family mission statement, our family’s “Standard of Truth”.  It has mostly remained the same over the years, this year we added, “we are grateful.”  Each of us sign it.  Every morning before school our family armors up! We open with a song and prayer, then before reading the Book of Mormon we recite our mission statement loud and proud, “The WEBBS! Dad, Mom, Emma, Vera, Paul, Mark, Mary! We love Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ! We are Grateful! We can do Hard Things! We are ALWAYS kind! We choose the right! We Help Others! We can pray ALWAYS! WE KNOW WHO WE ARE! THE WEBBS!”  This has become a great start to our day.  Recently a mother of one of my six-year Mark’s friends told me that when they had taken my son to a restaurant with their family, her son had refused to eat his food.  Mark said, “I am a Webb and we try new things and we are grateful.”  He then encouraged their son to not complain and eat his dinner.  He was prepared to know what to do in that situation to help because of our family’s morning routine.

My father-in-law was one of the founding members of the Franklin Institue which became Franklin Covey.  This has been a blessing to our family.   My husband was brought up to write out his goals and create mission statements.  Every year as a couple, we get away for a weekend and review our direction.  We cross off things that we have done on our bucket list and add new things that we want to try.  I have a testimony that this works and yet, I have never personally written my own mission statement.  I have never even thought of it.  This week in class we were encouraged to write a personal constitution.  It was a wonderful exercise.  I added to the binder that holds our family goals.  I am going to have my children and husband write theirs and add them to the binder as well. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Lecture

In D&C 130:18, we read, “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.”   We are on this Earth to learn and all of our experiences in our life are part of our process of becoming like our Heavenly Father.   The journey of the entrepreneur mirrors much of what we are striving to do in our life.   An entrepreneur seeks mentors and experiences that help him discover and build talents.   They have goals that they are moving toward and they seek business experiences and products that build up and help their customers and employees.   Entrepreneurs seek to master a skill through practice and perseverance.   In seeking growth in their careers, entrepreneurs are also attaining intelligence that will rise with them.   To this end, we need to be prayerful and considerate when choosing our journeys.   This course has had amazing talks and devotionals given by great leaders who are eager to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Supportive Culture

Year two of graduate school- I brought our two kids to the city so we could see Dad on Halloween This week we did mini case studies that dealt with choices of whether or not to spend time with family or focus on career and for whatever reason I wanted to get on a soapbox and share some amazing advice my grandmother gave me early in my marriage that has had a large influence on our family culture.   We had recently moved to Virginia but it felt more like I lived in Virginia with our firstborn and my husband lived in D.C. where he was working and going to school full-time.   He would leave every morning before we woke up and take the train to get to work and then he would get home after dark, exhausted and have to study.   Sunday was often the only day we spent together.   I complained to my Grandma about being a single mom and she in turn shared what she had just read about Brigham Young and mothers who came to him concerned that he was calling...
Post a Comment
Read more

Integrity

 Integrity is something that I became aware of in my twenties as I began to study the gospel and gain a testimony.  I wanted that sense of peace that I knew would only come from living an honest life.  That decision has been an incredible blessing.  It has taken a lot of work. I grew up afraid of harsh punishments and consequences for mistakes.  As a result, I discovered that if I just didn't say anything or if I lied, things would go smoother.  Lying and rationalization became a tool of survival.  As I learned about my Savior and began to partake of his atonement, I learned that I did not need this tool.  That in fact, it was a harmful tool that caused me deep pain, stunted my opportunities,  kept me from real relationships and created heavy anxiety.  Almost fifteen years later, I am amazed at the peace living a life of integrity brings.  We read a talk by Sheri Dew on integrity this week where she says, "..t rust, which can onl...
Post a Comment
Read more