sowing and reaping and all that jazz

this past sunday in church, two of the talks were on talents. i thought that was kind of cool. they said good stuff; i paid attention, took notes on my feelings and kinda nodded in approval at the end.

i went to sunday school where the lesson, though not planned with the previous meeting, was also on talents. perhaps it was because the talks primed me, but something in that lesson really resonated with me right away. maybe because it was because sunday school is a smaller class where we can really talk about application of such concepts.

my friend katherine was teaching, and she asked some good questions that we discussed, and two really stuck out to me: what are my talents? ...like, really? i think we all sort of know our talents but until we vocalize them to ourselves, i think a lot of them can go unnoticed. after all, many of the most valuable talents are silent ones. and, what makes it hard to recognize and develop more talents? man, i had fun thinking about this one. there were some phenomenal answers and it really made me think. i won't share the answers here, so that you can come up with your own. you and i can discuss them some other time if you'd like. or you can leave a comment. or whatever.

katherine was teaching out of the gospel principles manual and in there, it lists six steps to developing new talents.

1. discover (pray to learn about our talents)
2. willing (to spend time and effort to develop the talent we seek)
3. faith (faith that God will help us and faith in ourselves)
4. skills (learn necessary skills. can take a class, ask a friend, read a book, etc)
5. practice ("the mastery of a talent must be earned")
6. share ("it is by using our talents that they grow." matt 25:29)

[those principles and direct quotes came from the gospel principles manual]

after we discussed this, she handed out stickie notes and had us all take at least six of them. on each stickie, we wrote these steps and then how we'd apply them in accordance with a talent that we want to learn.

one of my favorite things katherine said was, "our weaknesses can put us in a position to develop a new talent."

after debating for a while about all the talents i want to cultivate, i decided on one that would help the rest: time management. 

as you can tell from here and here, i really struggle with it. in fact, i'm pretty terrible. so i decided i'll let you know my thoughts and such and become accountable to whoever reads this.

i'm out of the the time i have allotted to myself to write. so, i'll continue this when i have more time. (look! i'm doing it! time management and stuff!) 

til then, do you actively seek talents? what are some you're trying to cultivate? i'm honestly curious because 1. i want to know that i'm not alone in talent-seeking and 2. i want to add talents to my talents-to-gain list. :) it's interesting to see what others are working on.