The ongoing war continues...

That war being the war between where I am now and where I desire to be. I have been struggling with the thought of cold calling all week, and finally on Saturday I told myself I was going to do it and buckle down, only to sit down to do it after reading the first chapter in Your First Year in Network Marketing and have an anxiety attack at the thought of making those calls-I never even saw that coming, and I was so angry with myself over it. I was so shaken up over it that I just texted Amy Rivera even though she was in Miami(and I was not-another upsetting failure).

On the other hand, something hit me during stake priesthood meeting. The theme was about living our religion in New York. The youth speaker and the other guy from the youth speaker's ward were pretty standard-keep the commandments and serve in the church in spite of worldly influence. Yeah, okay, fine. I think I have that down. ;-) But then one of the senior missionaries serving in the mission spoke about how he was able to be successful in spite of living the gospel(or maybe because of it!) and admonished us that we should be successful at our chosen careers to better enable us to be an example to those around us. And I understood completely. Sure, living the gospel by itself doesn't guarantee success-there is much more to success than just what is in the scriptures(I'm sorry to those that think that's blasphemy, but it's true), but when we are successful, people are more likely to listen to us. And besides that, it gives us a greater opportunity to serve and contribute. After all, remember how I keep thinking about how that vacation mansion in Greenport would give me a bigger studio to record in, as well as a nice getaway for the Scouts to camp at, to go boating, and then to also work on the landscaping for the environmental merit badges?

Then came Pres. Buckner's talk-his focus wasn't just living our religion in New York, but was about building the church in New York. I actually got a sense of him assuming his calling the same way Pres. Monson assumed his calling as President of the Church at his inagural press conference. He knows what he wants us to achieve, and he knows how to get us there. Of course, building the church reminded me of my other major income-building dream, real estate investing. After all, it would enable me to provide housing for members of the church, building it close to chapels and providing family friendly housing. And while there's more to building the church and attracting members to New York than just that, it's something I feel I've been drawn to for this specific purpose. Now I just need to be able to afford Rich Dad Academy to learn exactly how to do it.

My mom and I were talking, and she specifically mentioned a verse in Mormon 9, which is ironic that one of my favorite verses is also in Mormon 9, and both verses tackle the same thing-asking God in faith without doubt or fear, and knowing you will be blessed. And we prayed about it. Do I feel like Market America is the path I should be going? Absolutely. Have I prayed about it? I have. Have I received confirmation? I believe I have.

I also went to the Leadership Training Broadcast yesterday, and everything I heard and felt confirmed that I should be married, and that I should be married sooner rather than later. I just don't know to whom or how to get her attention. I was at a Chinese New Year's party last night and was able to chat with some women I already knew and meet a couple new ones. I finally wrote Sarah back a response to her email, but she wasn't at church today, so I couldn't follow up in person. I still need to write a response to Brook. And I'm getting more responses on LDSSingles, LDSPromise, and LDSLinkup.

Getting back to Pres. Monson's press conference-I realized that the three members of the First Presidency represent three distinct geographic divisions of the church-Pres. Monson representing the church in Utah, Pres. Eyring representing the church in North America outside of Utah(he had a father who grew up in Mexico, and he himself grew up in New Jersey) and then Pres. Uchtdorf representing the church outside of North America. I also found it interesting that he chose two junior apostles for his counselors, as if to inject some fresh blood into the senior leadership of the church. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in April conference.