I cannot very well think of the new year without reflecting on the past year.  I have pondered a lot in the past few days.  I wanted to write this post before crossing into the new year, but I couldn’t get my thoughts straight.  I still haven’t quite gotten it there, so I just decided to talk from my heart.

I started thinking about the year 2011, and what I had accomplished that year.  How have I grown spiritually, and what have I done to progress towards eternal life?  I sat and thought about it, and I realized that I had not made much progress at all.  As a matter of fact, I might have even taken a step backwards.  This year, I gained 45 pounds in three months, so if I use that as a representation of my momentum, that explains why I feel the way I feel.  Yes, over the past couple of months, I did start to regain some forward momentum, but for the most part, this year was pretty dark for me.

I am 43 years old now, and I am in the second half of my life.  What have I done in that time to prepare for the next life?  There are points of time in my life where I have done some really good things like finding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and getting baptized, going to the Temple and marrying in the Temple.  Of course there are many other things too, but overall, my gaze has not been fixed towards my Heavenly Father.  I have been reading a lot as of late, and in a book called:  Increase in Learning by David A. Bednar, I learned that I have a lot of knowledge in a lot of different areas, but I do not have a lot of understanding.

One thing I do understand is that Satan has an immense amount of knowledge.  He is very smart.  He has had a lot of time to work on that.  He is a master of distraction.  That how he gets me.  He puts things in my path that he knows will attract my gaze.  I start to spend a lot of time on those distractions and then I stop focusing on the reasons why I am here on this earth to begin with.  I am here to learn to become like my Father in Heaven.  Satan’s desire is to keep us distracted so we do not focus on our eternal progression.  The more we become involved in temporal or earthly pleasures, the more we are lead off into diverse paths that lead us farther and farther away from our Father in Heaven.  He doesn’t do it in one large event.  He does it in small increments.  A little here and a little there until we are bound tight by his flaxen chords.  At that point, the effort to get back to that straight and narrow path is difficult.  It is doable, but it will take a lot of prayer, sacrifice, soul-searching and repenting to get back.  The consequence for those distractions is a loss of time to learn and grown in righteousness.  We can never get that time back.

This week, I also came to understand that the Lord’s house is a house of order.  My house has be in disarray for quite some time.  It is cluttered, and unorganized.  That is totally a reflection of who was really in control of my life.  The Spirit is not there when chaos and contention are present.  So, I have slowly started to organize my home one little corner at a time.  I am fighting every day to take back control of my house and my environment.  I am removing all clutter, and anything that is not inspiring and uplifting; especially when it comes to the multimedia area.  That is one of the quickest modes of transportation that the adversary uses.  Months ago, we chose not to have a TV in our home.  That is one of the smartest things we ever did, but that is not enough.  We must also clean up the music and videos that are in our home as well as in our cars.  Technology can become a huge distraction if we let it overpower our lives.

As I start this new year.  My main focus is on “Returning With Honor.”  My main goals are:

• Healing my body and spirit
• Learning to use the atonement in my life
• Learning to feast on the Scriptures
• Learning to discern the promptings of the Spirit
• Finding out who Kyeni really is

I really feel that this is my year to take a huge leap forward.  I look at this year with a lot of optimism and hope.  I am excited about the challenges ahead, and the spiritual growth to come.  Thank you all for following along on my blog this year.  I really appreciate all of your comments and words on support and encouragement.

Happy New Year!!

Kyeni