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.