I’ve really been thinking in the last week . . .

I’ve really been thinking about the gospel this week and what it means to me.  I really felt the spirit last week in Sacrament meeting and strongly felt it again today.  Today though I really felt it through sharing time, a trying singing time, and then into the adults+youth third hour meeting (thanks to today being the 5th Sunday).  As I mentioned in a previous entry, I sang a song called "Look On Him And Live" in last week’s meeting.  If you want to take a look at it, see http://defordmusic.com/lookonhimandlive.htm. That link takes you to the page for the song itself.  On that page, you can listen to a demo recording of the song, along with looking at the pdf of the sheet music.  It’s a gorgeous song.  Usually, by the time I sing a song in sacrament, it doesn’t make me cry.  It might touch me as I’m learning it, but most of the time it doesn’t by the time I sing it.  Last Sunday, I was sitting in Sacrament and looking at the sheet music during the talk immediately preceeding my song and the words suddenly just struck me.  Initially I was teary-eyed and thankfully the speaker had several minutes left and I could compose myself – I wanted to be sure I could actually sing the song, instead of falling into tears.  I know that being so touched by the song that I start crying instead of singing can make just as much of an impact, but I wanted to sing the words.  The song fit so well with the topic of last week – missionary work.  And this week, the topic was the Sacrament and that too really touched me.  It’s been amazing the last two weeks to feel the spirit so strongly and know that even though I’m struggling, my Heavenly Father loves me.

I’ve realized in the last day or so that if I’m truly going to be successful at remembering to pray and read my scriptures and do the other things that I need to do, I need to "attach" them to a current part of my schedule.  Part of the problem with ADD is remembering to do things.  Think about it this way:  You’re in your car and you see a cough drop (or something else insignificant that you should/need to take inside the house) and it occurs to you that you need to take it into the house.  Except that that cough drop (or whatever) never makes it in the house.  You see it, know it needs to go inside, you think about taking it inside but that thought is gone from your mind a second later as something takes its place.  By the end of the day, you’ve seen the cough drop x number of times, have thought about taking it inside x number of times, but it never makes it in the house.  For someone with ADD, particularly the inattentive type, all it takes is a second to get distracted and have one thought fly out of your head and be replaced with something else.  In order for me to remember something and make it a part of my regular routine, it HAS to be inserted somewhere and attached to the routine around it within my thought process.  For example, when I was on the Daytrana patch, remembering to put the patch on wasn’t a problem, as it was attached to getting dressed.  However, taking it off was a problem because I couldn’t find something to attach it to.  I couldn’t take it off when I got ready for bed, as it needed to come off three hours before bed.  Taking my dosage of meds in the morning is easy because it simply gets done as soon as I’m done with my cereal.  Prayer I just need to think about in terms of getting up in the morning and going to bed.  Unlike other people, I can’t simply hope to remember it.  I HAVE to think about it at other times and associate it in my head with getting up in the morning and going to bed at night.  In terms of reading my scriptures, Im not sure where to insert it.  I also know I need to attach it to something that’s not likely to change due to events outside my control.  I also know better than to attach it to going to bed.  I want scripture study to truly do me good and help me learn and understand Heavenly Father’s plan.  That’s not going to happen if I’m reading right before bed.  I’m thinking about attaching it to my morning routine before I head to class each morning.  It would mean making sure I’m out of bed at 6 when my alarm goes off, instead of the alarm going off at 6 and getting out of bed at 6:30.  The only thing I really worry about is again, being alert enough and coherent enough to get all that I can out of it.

As I stated earlier, I had decided also this week to talk to the primary president about my primary class and getting help.  Well, she had her baby late this week and she’s going to take 3 or 4 weeks "off" before she comes back, etc (and I don’t blame her in the least!).  So instead I talked to one of her counselors today about what we can do about it.  Apparently, there’s not really anyone in the ward available to call.  I did explain to her that I need someone in there that’s willing to help keep order, otherwise having another adult in there doesnt really do me any good.  I did also tell her, however, that even just having someone sit with my class in addition to me during Primary would help, because if they’re not so crazy going into class, class has a better chance of being somewhat sane.  If they’re crazy after Primary, class time is that much harder.  But even that, she said, would be a challenge.  But with knowing now that there’s not really anyone to call, I don’t want to have to say "we need to find a way to fix the situation or you need to move me to a different class or release me." 

Now saying this out loud (or typing it, as the case may be) might be asking for it, but it occurred to me that in the time I’ve been an "adult," I haven’t spoken in Sacrament Meeting.  The last time I spoke was when I was a senior in high school and it was for the program put on by the Seminary students (that translates to four years!).