Elder Van in Spain: A new decade is among us!

Hola a todos!

This week was great. I hope everyone had a very happy new year! This week we had zone conference in Valencia. I will say Valencia is very pretty! We had a great conference. President Galli asked us a pretty deep thinking question: whether the opposite of faith is certainty or doubt. And we had a long discussion about it and related it to ourselves and the people we are teaching. I personally think it is more certainty because Alma 32:21 says faith is not having a perfect knowledge of things. Therefore helping the certainty argument, but it was a great discussion!

In light of the new year, we have all made, are making, or are telling ourselves we will, make goals or resolutions. Visions to achieve, goals to accomplish, etc. And something I thought I'd share with y'all is SMART goals. I learned this principle at NYLT, and have been able to use it at school, work, home, and most certainly here in the mission field. It's an acronym, standing for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Timely

I have found that when I use this acronym and apply it to my goals by making them "smarter" I find I am more likely to achieve them. I found this quote the other day while studying Preach my Gospel, and I thought it related to goals and this time of year:

“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 our 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.”

–President M. Russell Ballard

I hope you have all had a great week and a great start to the new decade. Until next week!

Élder Van Wagenen

God Bless America, Viva la España

Fotos:

1. Valencia!