2012

After what seemed like non-stop parties, driving, eating and fun Brett and I actually spent New Year's Day all by our lonesome. My mom and dad, being the great grandparents that they are, took Bradock, Raylee and cousin McKai with them to Pinetop so all us "adult kids" could enjoy our New Years Eve night. The kids had so much fun hanging out with Mamaw and Papa and enjoying all the snow they had. My dad got some fun pics of the kids sledding...which they quickly caught on to and were doing all by themselves. It was nice to have a few days of quiet and get all the Christmas stuff taken down and boxed back up. When the kids came home on Monday, day after New Years, they walked into the house and asked "Is Christmas all gone, Mom? It's really over?!" Yup, it is really over and on to a new year.

We have had a lot of ups and downs the last month or so and challenges I never even imagined we would face...I guess we were overdue. Brett is no longer working at Anderson Dental, which left us with a lot of questions as to where and what to do next...made for a very stressful and crazy Christmas. Brett and I have felt so good about moving to Payson and we continue to feel good about living here. With a few more crazy bumps in the road, Brett finally accepted a position as the full-time and one and only dentist at Bonanza Square Dentistry...close to where we live. This decision allows our family to stay in Payson, decide if this is really where we want to be, work in a practice that we could potentially buy at anytime, fulfill our church callings, keep the kids in the schools they have come to love and many more reasons.

This year, with everything that has gone on, I have realized I need to work on a lot of things...forgiveness, love, patience, faith, being more Christ-like and loving those that I want to ignore. As much as I wanted to believe that I am a forgiving, unoffended person life circumstances have tested those attributes in me and I have fallen short. I am thankful for a powerful gospel doctrine teacher that has hit these same things I have been struggling with in his last two lessons. His first lesson ended with a challenge that if we don't have a firm testimony in the Book of Mormon to decide if there is anything in this life that we will let stand in our way of gaining that testimony. If we do have a testimony of it then are we living our life according to what we believe. Yesterday's lesson we covered 1 Nephi chapter 1-7 of the Book of Mormon and the teacher's challenge this week is to live our life so we could be somebody's modern-day Nephi. Neither of these are easy challenges and has stirred something in me I haven't felt in a long time. I am hoping for a better year...not in ways of physical, material or temporal things (even though I do have those goals)...a year where I can reflect next year and say "Wow, Donnie, you have come a long way...you decided what it is you believe and you are living it." I know that doesn't mean perfection because I will never achieve that, but if I can try and get a little better every year maybe, just maybe I can be proud of the life I lived and the choices I made.