In my office is a beautiful painting of a wheat field. The painting is a vast collection of individual brushstrokes—none of which in isolation is very interesting or impressive. In fact, if you stand close to the canvas, all you can see is a mass of seemingly unrelated and unattractive streaks of yellow and gold and brown paint. However, as you gradually move away from the canvas, all of the individual brushstrokes combine together and produce a magnificent landscape of a wheat field. Many ordinary, individual brushstrokes work together to create a captivating and beautiful painting.

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33). Consistency is a key principle as we lay the foundation of a great work in our individual lives and as we become more diligent and concerned in our own homes.

“More Diligent and Concerned at Home“, Elder David A. Bednar, October 2009 General Conference

So many things we do in our lives are like brushstrokes on our souls. As we go about our day there are hundreds of opportunities for brushstrokes. Do we pick up the brush or are we making ourselves too busy for even one brushstroke?

Today’s weigh in is on a Monday. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, it’s only because today is Monday.

You can see there’s been a big jump in my chart, but I’m not going to focus on that. My trend line is currently headed down, so that’s what I care about right now!

Last Week’s Weight: 257.2 lbs
Current Weight: 253.6 lbs
Difference: 3.6 lbs
Weeks to go: 28
Pounds to go: 23.6

Well, this week was tough with lots of leftovers and a birthday party (Happy Birthday, Julia!). I still managed to lose a bit, though, so that’s better than it could have been!

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

So this weigh in is a little late. Last week was pretty crazy: we had family in town for Thanksgiving plus a bunch of us were sick. Yuck. Here are my stats for the week (as usual, I'm reported my weighted averages):

Last Week's Weight: 258.70 lbs
Current Weight: 257.50 lbs
Difference: 1.2 lbs
Weeks to go: 30
Pounds to go: 27.5

Overall, not as good as last week, but it was more than a pound lost, which was great. I did good on Thanksgiving, but not so good since then with all the leftovers. It's time to refocus again.

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

This was definitely a good week to kick things off! My goal was one pound lost, but my weighted average went down 2.21 lbs.! Most of it was calorie tracking at Sparkpeople, weighing myself every day at Physics Diet, and lots of time on the basketball court! See you next week, if not sooner!

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

It’s been a great week so far! I won’t do my official update for the week yet, but after monitoring what goes in and getting plenty of exercise (mostly on the basketball court), the scale has had much lower numbers for me lately. I’m going to start using a weighted average (as suggested by The Hacker’s Diet) and implemented at Physics Diet to report my weight loss instead of using real numbers on the scale. This lets me factor out the noise in the numbers on the scale and focus on whether I’m losing weight or not.

I’m going to show my chart below that starts the day I began this 30 in 30 quest. You can see that there are red spots (the first day) that indicate when I weighed above my weighted average. The ‘>’ symbol is used to indicate that day’s weight. Green spots indicate where the weight was below the weighted average. The scale read 254.8 this morning, which might be partially due to some funkiness in the scale, but it brought down my weighted average by quite a bit. I’ve been tracking my weight for about two years this way, and I’ve found that when I enter in my weight into this website the same day I do a lot better about keeping it down. This time I’m using other calorie counting tools, too, but I really like PhysicsDiet.com for its price (free!) and ease of use. And who can argue about 1.73 pounds lost in less than a week? I’m looking forward to my first weekly report this Friday.

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

Eventually I realized that we’re not ready for a house yet, and we don’t really need one. What we need for all of our stuff is a home. For some of our stuff that home is not our home. With too much stuff around, things tend to get in the way and make the whole house seem smaller. We plan on storing some of our things and getting rid of lots more. We’re learning that “guilt is not a reason to keep something“.

Although it’s still underway, we’ve made lots of good progress. Our food storage area is much more manageable, and now everything that had been there is in its proper home. We’re looking forward to making more progress on this in the coming weeks.

One of the final books in the Book of Mormon is actually written by a prophet named Mormon (he compiled many records together, so that is why the whole work also bears his name). As I was reading through his writings, I was impressed by the fact that he was faithful when all others around had forgotten about God. I have thought a lot recently about wickedness in the world, and it seems like fewer and fewer people believe in God, and those who don’t are very adamant about their ideas. Mormon’s writings help me recognize that living the gospel is possible in a godless world.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Book of Mormon Challenge with me! I’d love to hear more about your experiences reading the Book of Mormon again.

For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

-2 Nephi 28:30

This is one of my favorite scriptures. In some ways it’s very intimidating; I know that I could always improve at “lend[ing] an ear to [His] counsel”. In other ways, it’s very reassuring. The essence of this scripture is that God will bless us with continual understanding if we look to Him. If we don’t wish to learn more, then he won’t give it to us. General Conference is coming up in a little over a week. Now is a great time to prepare for the messages that we will receive.