"Bid Farewell To Your Bloodstained Past. Vanquish The Dark Knight!!" (And Other Random Thoughts)

No, not The Dark Knight (the movie).

Another benefit about working at El Pollo Loco: I have six hours to just evaluate myself as I work. I've been doing that a lot lately. I was thinking about it today, and I kind of feel like I am a Dark Knight right now, and I am on a quest to become what I should be--A Paladin. Nerdy, I know, but it's true. (Most of you have no idea what I'm talking about, but pretty much: Dark Knight=Not bad, but not good. Paladin=Powerful/great. You'd only understand if you played Final Fantasy IV.)

At Youth Conference this year, our theme was missionary work. A good friend of mine advised me that Satan would do all he could to prevent us from going on missions; he told me that Satan would tempt you more and more the closer you get to obtaining your mission call. He told me that he learned that from experience. I remember smiling and thinking, "Yeah, but I'm different. I've never had a problem with Satan's temptation or anything."

My friends, my lesson tonight is: Never think you are an exception. I have about a year left until I get my mission call, but Satan's temptations have been getting to me the last few months. Negative and/or unnecessary thoughts and ideas that have never entered my mind before are now making their way into my head. Now, no worries--I haven't acted on any of these negative thoughts, but they are only getting stronger.

Earlier this summer, I mentioned how I needed to get back to being more spiritually in-tune. Well, I'll be honest--I haven't been doing such a good job. But today at work, I realized that the only way to vanquish all the negative thoughts is to have the Spirit with me at all times. And to do that, I just need to do a better job with the simple things--prayer, scripture study, fasting, etc. Like I've said before--Wow, a session at EFY would be great right about now! :)

And so my goal for this next week is to get myself back on track--back to being spiritually in-tune and all. I need to concentrate on that one thing. You see--I made a list and I entitled it Changed (For The Better). It's a pretty big list of things that I think I need to do to become what I want to become. The list hasn't been going so well, though, because I made a mistake. Rather than concentrate on one objective at a time, I tried to do them all at once, and that's when you are going to get in trouble and not get anything done. And so I am starting over, and I am going to concentrate on the most important stuff first and then move on down the list.

If there's one thing I've learned this summer it's definitely this: I underestimated myself, and I am a lot more junked up than I originally thought. But I still have a month to do some changing/evaluating, though! :) I hope the world is bearing with me.

Anothing thing learned: Although it doesn't look like it on the outside, I really am a self-centered person. Haha. But I already kind of knew that. ;)

Right now, I would say the thing I am looking forward to most is seminary. I wish seminary was a year-round thing. If you have the right attitude about it and you actually participate (both AT seminary and at home), it absolutely changes your day. Seminary keeps me on top of things, and it's the only thing about senior year that I am looking forward to right now.

Today was a great Saturday. I want to write another post about it right now, but I think I will save it for tomorrow. :)