Showing posts with label fast offering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fast offering. Show all posts

Saturday, February 11, 2012

56 Looking back, looking forward, looking to God

Today I decide to be wealthy.

Lesson #2 in the books is to "take ownership" of one's finances.

I realize that I am so deep in doo-doo financially.  I have good intentions, like making charts showing what bills need to be paid, and I do make them, and then misplace them. I intend to make phone calls, and then forget. I find one excuse after another not to follow through. I went through my check books to see how much I still had out, and how much was available for paying bills.  Tithing money was put into money orders yesterday, so that it wouldn't go through the checking account, so that I wouldn't mistake it as mine.  "Pay your tithing and a fast offering," Elder Golden said. "Many people in Africa are very poor, but they do it, and miracles happen."  I see myself as still being in this financial situation for the indefinite future, but really, if it were anything else, would I do any better?  I think a certain woman I know has been through three or four marriages, and now she's single again, and on disability.  Would I handle her challenges any better?

I have three major job applications that need (for my sake) to be turned in on Monday.  Deadline for one is the 12th, another is the 22nd.  The other one, I'll turn in Monday, when I go to town in the afternoon.  Today I worked on Ida's book, got some research materials, and I also combed the internet, looking for jobs to apply to.   One of the people I used to work for told me that it was just as well that I didn't get hired on at Touchmark, and explained why.

I noticed when I was driving down Third Street, that the dry cleaners has vacated its building. The laundromat is still there.  The real estate agency that was a couple of blocks away was also empty.  Grover's Pub, where one of my co-workers said had the best pizza in town, had its lights turned off.  Craigslist has more openings, but they are professional ones.  I suspect that people are still moving out of the area.

Monday I'll take these applications in, and go apply at motels as a motel maid, at the larger motels, and go to Labor Ready, which is a work-today, pay-today/job placement and Goodwill, which is also a job placement place.

I was at Fred Meyer, and saw two of my former coworkers and a young man who works there, who is the same age as my daughters, whom I used to teach in church.  I said hi to them, and they back as we walked past each other, and Shelly stopped to care about me, asking me how I was doing, and giving me her time, showing that she cares.  She could see that I was just figurative when I said that I was doing fine.  "Hang in there, she said, "that's all you can do sometimes."

I thought some about a talk in church a Sunday or so ago:

We people are first watch people, but God is a fourth watch God.  The speaker explained that the Hebrew day in the Bible was divided into night and day, with the day having twelve hours and night having four three-hour watches.  God will always answer our prayers, but in His time. We want our prayers answered now, but God sometimes wants us to learn something first, and sometimes what we want or need takes time to arrange, but they will be answered, even though the answer is not what we would have thought it would be.


I had my blessing last Sunday, and I was told that Heavenly Father is aware of my challenges.


Today I decide to be wealthy.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Day 22

Today I decide to be wealthy.

I am now more than a third through the trial period.

The 5 lessons are --my note are in italics:

1. decide to be wealthy  --doing that part now
2. take responsibility for your money. --working on it
3. keep a portion of everything you earn  --does left over coins in the coat pocket count?
4. win in the margins --find some way to make money that's during your non-regular paycheck time
5. give back --tithing and charity.

I've always done #5.  I've paid tithing since I was a child, and my mom told me not to, as it cost the church more to process the nickel than it was worth.  So I guess in a way, paying my tithing was a form of rebellion against my mom, but it was still keeping the commandment to put God first, first.  So keeping the commandment to love God is honoring my mom.

Anyway, Malachi 3:10--- Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

I also give a fast offering once a month.  A fast offering is when we fast for at least two meals and give the money we would have spent on them to the bishop.  The church uses it to help the poor (like me).  Fast offerings fund the Bishop's Storehouses.  When I had a regular paycheck, I usually gave $20 a month.  Now it's $10.  For $10, that could buy a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a pound of butter. The last time I got food from the storehouse, it was before the girls came home from college.  I'd say that we got $100 worth of groceries, if not more.  Dairy, canned foods, soaps, baking ingredients, as if we'd gone to the store and bought it all.  (I'd gotten some meats before, and someone was cleaning out their family freezer and gave us some more.)


I would like to give $100 every month, with $200 at Christmas time. Perhaps sometime in this life, I will be able to do that. The largest I gave was $300, when my aunt died and left me some money in her will.  (We paid off the septic system and the water hook-up with most of it.) 

My girls are in college or graduated, and they have good lives.  My husband and I are still together, and we are still in our house.  If we need to, we can get some more food from the Bishop's Storehouse. Our parents are in good health, and we have gas in the car.  We went over to the town where my brother and his family live, and had a nice visit.  We are still so very broke, but at least we are still breathing.


From time to time, I give small donations to other charities.


Tomorrow I have a one-time job doing inventory at a store.  $10 an hour, maybe five hours at the most.  If I had a regular job, this would be part of Lesson #4.


Today I decide to be wealthy.