This last weekend was general conference. I felt like there were three themes: temple attendance, focusing on our covenants, and working on our relationship with Jesus Christ. As is always the case just after general conference, I think we all felt a desire to make improvements in our lives. Yet, it’s important that these changes are lasting improvements in our lives, and not just a temporary change.
Yesterday’s Experience
On Tuesdays, I work at the temple as an ordinance worker. Having a higher-than-normal number of people attend the temple the week after general conference is normal. Yet, yesterday was extreme even for the week after general conference. It was probably my busiest day at the temple since I started as a temple worker. During one hour, we had somewhere around 30 people come in for sealings. As some reference, last week, we had one hour where we only had two people signed up. That meant we had to rely on temple workers to help out those people.
Yesterday, endowment sessions were full. One was so large that it ran over, backing up things. I had to postpone my break yesterday so there would be enough temple workers in initiatories to accommodate the patrons. It was a busy day, and it was wonderful.
It Would Be Beautiful If This Were Lasting
Seeing that many people at the temple is exciting. It represents people’s desire to follow the prophet and other leaders of the church. It would be great if there were that many people attending the temple every day that it’s open. A lot of temple work could get done if we were to fill the temple whenever it’s open.
But Is It Only a Temporary Change?
Maybe, I’m being pessimistic, but I tend to think that for many people, it’s only a temporary change. They may attend the temple this week. They may even attend more frequently for a month or two. Then things will go back to what they were before. As I said before, temple attendance is always higher the week after general conference than it is other times throughout the year.
How Can We Make It More Than a Temporary Change?
Making lasting change applies to more than just regular temple attendance. It applies to any positive change that we want to make in our lives. We’ve all had times when we’ve made a worthwhile goal. We may have done really well with it, but then we’ve fallen back into a bad habit after a while. How can we make improvements in our lives that are more than just a temporary change?
Decide Why
One of the first steps in achieving any worthwhile goal is to determine why you want that goal. For some people, following the prophet or another church leader might be enough to push them forward with their goals. For other people, they might need different motivations to achieve their goals. Maybe, you want to read the Book of Mormon all the way through because you’ve never read it. You want to know for yourself if it’s true, and you know that this will only happen if you read it.
Make a Realistic Goal
I think one of the most important things is to make it a realistic goal. For example, if it’s been a year since you last attended the temple, making a goal to go twice a week might be a bit of a stretch. Establishing a goal of once a month or even every other month might be more realistic.
When making any goal, spiritual or otherwise, it’s important that it’s your goal. While there are times when you may want to set a similar goal with a friend so you can motivate each other, be careful about comparing yourself to someone else. This may lead to discouragement and a desire to quit.
Consider the “How”
Having a goal without considering how you’re going to achieve that goal rarely works out well. For example, if you want to read the Book of Mormon in a specific amount of time, you may need to determine how many pages or chapters you want to read each day or each week. Having that in mind will help you determine if you are on track to achieve your goal.
While a goal to attend the temple more is great, you’ll likely have to determine how you’re going to do this. Are you going to give up another activity so you can fit in temple attendance? Is there a specific day of the week or the month that you want to set aside to go?
Be Willing to Reevaluate
When establishing any goals, you’ll likely have to reevaluate after a while. When reevaluation time comes, you may find that you need to adjust your goal. For example, if your goal was to read the whole Book of Mormon in a month, after a week, you may find that a more realistic goal is to finish it in three or four months (or even six months or a year).
Don’t Get Discouraged
Let’s face it. It’s pretty rare for a goal to go perfectly the first time. Maybe, something comes up one week, and you’re unable to attend the temple on your chosen day. Perhaps, you have a busy day, and your scripture study was shorter or less meaningful one day. When these sorts of things happen, we can get discouraged and give up, or we can use that opportunity to give ourselves a little slack and increase our determination to make this more than just a temporary change. We can determine that we’ll do better tomorrow, next week, and moving forward. This may need to happen several times before we really make a lasting change in our lives.
Determination to Not Just Make It a Temporary Change
I think one of the most important things we can do to ensure that something is not just a temporary change is to determine in our hearts that it will be something lasting. Perhaps, that is one of the biggest reasons why we have general conference every six months. It is a great time to make changes in our lives. It’s a great time to reevaluate how we’ve done on our goals from the previous six months. It’s a great time to move forward with a determination to do better rather than getting discouraged by the places where we’ve fallen short in the last six months.
Final Thoughts on Lasting Improvement Versus Temporary Change
Looking back, I realize that many of these people attending the temple more the week after general conference are trying to make a lasting improvement in their lives. As is the case with me, they might not be perfect at this change. They might only make it to the temple one or two more times between now and next October. Maybe, though, that’s better than they did between last October and now. As they keep trying, maybe they’ll do a little better this time than they did last time. Then they’ll do even better next time than they did this time. Eventually, if they don’t give up on that goal, that temporary change won’t just be temporary. It will become a lasting habit.
Perhaps my goal should be to focus on making improvements in my own life rather than judging others when I feel like they are only making a temporary change. As you can see, I’m falling short of that at times, but I shouldn’t get discouraged. I’ll keep moving forward, trying to do better tomorrow than I did today.
