Choosing the Right

Friendships, especially friendships we form when we are young, can be quite fulfilling. Friends help each other, lift each another, comfort, push us to be better, and help us to make the right choices. Friends can lead us down the right path or easily deter us to follow the wrong path.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been blessed with wonderful friends in my life. I remember feeling from a very young age that choosing the right friends would be a wonderful blessing in my life for years to come. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen where the choice to be friends with someone, or the harder choice to not be friends with someone, has made all the difference in my life.

I have a best friend that’s been in my life since we were five years old. Debs and I have been inseparable since that first day of Kindergarten. As I think back on our teenage years, those first few semesters of college, and then on to raising families, I see that Debs has been an influencer for good in my life. When we were in high school, we made trips to the temple. We often spent Friday nights doing baptisms for the dead or just walking on the temple grounds. Maybe that seems like a “nerdy” thing for teenagers to do, but for us it helped us to make good decisions during the crucial years of our lives.

Our friendship has been through it all. Boyfriends, high school, husbands, kids, missions, college, and careers. We’ve had our ups and downs, our tears, anger, and sadness. But through it all, the good choices we made when we were younger helped us to pull through all the drama of life.

Choosing the right friends could be the most important decision in your life. Think about those closest to you. How have your friends influenced your life? Your decisions? How will they influence your future? Choose wisely, for friends will make a big difference in your life.

Have you ever stopped to “unplug?” All around us are distractions. Distractions that keep us from choosing the right. We constantly have music streaming into our ears; our fingers are busy texting; we spend hours playing games on Facebook. There are distractions all around us. And while all of these things are good in and of themselves, they are distractions. We are on constant information overload.

When we are distracted by our cell phones, the internet, and our ipods, it can be hard to listen for the still small voice of the Holy Ghost. When we can’t hear the Holy Ghost, our ability to make the right decisions is weakened. If our minds are full of the latest status update or the newest song, it’s difficult to

Have you ever stopped to “unplug?” All around us are distractions. Distractions that keep us from choosing the right. We constantly have music streaming into our ears; our fingers are busy texting; we spend hours playing games on Facebook. There are distractions all around us. And while all of these things are good in and of themselves, they are distractions. We are on constant information overload.

When we are distracted by our cell phones, the internet, and our ipods, it can be hard to listen for the still small voice of the Holy Ghost. When we can’t hear the Holy Ghost, our ability to make the right decisions is weakened. If our minds are full of the latest status update or the newest song, it’s difficult to choose the right.

I thought about the constant distractions in my life and decided to do something about it. I unplugged for five days. At first, I thought this was the craziest decision I had ever made. I was having withdrawals from not having my cell phone in my hand. And then, something happened. I stopped and listened. I listened to the silence. I listened to the thoughts and feelings in my heart. I listened to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. For five days, I felt peace in my life.

I invite you to unplug. Even if all you can do is unplug for a couple of hours or a few days, try it. Experiment with leaving the world behind. You may be surprised how much easier it will be to choose the right when the distractions leave your life.