It's hard stuff.
I was just like, "OK, well, I'm just going to give up."
If it had been my idea, I would have, a long time ago, been,
"It's OK, you don't have to do that."
I've tried all sorts of different things,
and it just never worked out for the long term.
It was kind of to the point where it's like, "OK,
what are we supposed to do here?
How can we make this happen?
What do we need to do?"
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
For us, as parents, we need to support them 100 percent.
So maybe this is the best time for me
to awaken myself and do it with her so that she would be aware
that she's doing it not only by herself,
but she has a parent supporting her all the way.
In order to support our daughters,
we've really tried to make sure that they
get the occasional reminder, but it's also
been a matter of just giving them time to think and do it
at a pace of their own setting, as opposed
to having to be so rigid and prescriptive.
And I found that my role is to maybe take a step back and let
our daughters lead out.
One of the things that I've realized
is that it's important for me to listen and to communicate
regularly.
Trying to remember what's important to them
and what they want to improve upon
helps me focus on what questions I'm asking them more.
And you're learning to listen to them, and you get to know them,
and how they learn, and how they grow, and what they need,
and what motivates them.
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
I like how it was driven by him, and he chose his own goals.
He had ideas.
He had things he wanted to do.
And it was easier to support him when
I knew it was his goal and something he wanted to do.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
I can go to them and say, "What's important to you?"
And they can tell me, and then we can just go from there.
And then they can just self-regulate from there.
I can just remind them and help them,
and they're doing the work.
They're doing the goals.
I've tried several different times, several different ways
to get the kids to make goals and accomplish
those goals with rewards, and stickers, and all sorts
of different things, and it just never worked out
for the long term.
So when I had this prayer in my heart of "What can I do?"
and I asked--that's the whole thing is President Nelson has
asked us to seek personal revelation--I just got that
prompting and literally the vision board in my head:
This will work.
So I would say, have that prayer in your heart,
search and look, and then take it to the Lord
and see what personal revelation comes to you and your family,
because there's a way for everyone to do this program.
It'll look a little bit different for everyone,
and that's OK because we're all just trying
to make our way back to Christ.
I think the more that you allow them that power in their lives
to be the motivation, so much of it comes from inside of them.
It's that switch of thinking that we have
to be the ones that are motivating,
we are the ones that are rewarding,
or we are the ones that do that as parents,
and realizing that this is something bigger than us,
and that, in so many ways, the things that the kids develop,
and learn, and grow into is their reward in itself,
that they feel that, and then that becomes the driving
force behind why they're setting goals
is because they feel the Holy Ghost with them,
and they feel their Savior near them.
They have to discover that on their own.
It can't be something that you force or even try
to convince them of.
You just have to help them, and support them, and encourage
them to set goals and to push themselves,
because otherwise, they're not going
to get the experience, the relationship with our Heavenly
Father.
They're not going to have all of that, if you try to push them.
It has to come in their own time.
We have to be self-directed in our lives.
The scripture says we need to act and not be acted upon.
So this new initiative is teaching kids
how to act for themselves and proactively
move towards what's important to them
and what's important to Heavenly Father.
And so this is what we're trying to help our kids
do is become more self-directed, more connected to Him,
so that they're making the right kinds of decisions
for their lives.
People are super busy, so it was kind of a tricky transition
to get to the point where it was like, "OK,
what are we supposed to do here?
How can we make this happen?
What do we need to do?"
But once we started figuring it out and realizing
it was simpler than we were worrying that it should be,
things went a lot better.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
It's a little bit of a challenge to us
because we have six kids to gather together,
and then we are both working.
So the children really urged us together as family.
It's the time that we can talk to our children
about their individual goals so that we
could be able to support them and to assist them.
And we see the changes of our children,
that they are happy and having a good relationship
to each other.
And our children also develop their skills and talents.
There were so many times where Carolyn
wanted to quit the band.
It was hard.
She'd come home with her legs hurting.
She'd come home with her feet hurting,
and she just said, "I don't want to do this.
This is stupid.
I don't want to do this.
This is hard."
And we'd have to say, "We have to learn how to do hard things,
because life's going to be full of hard things."
And the minute you make a goal, the minute you have a plan,
you're figuring out how to accomplish that hard thing.
And then you do, and you realize, "Oh, I
can do hard things."
And then the next thing becomes a little bit easier.
I think one of the challenges or roadblocks
is not getting discouraged, just realizing
that that is part of the process is learning and growing,
and that that is also a part of applying the Atonement is
as we fail in certain goals or as we seemingly fail,
that we are learning how to set goals
and how to change that in the future.
If we had a little bit of discouragement
at a goal that hasn't quite come to pass the way we thought,
we might have to make some adjustments to it.
Start with things you can accomplish,
and if they don't work out after a week or two,
teach your children that wonderful process of modifying,
and then go forward again.
It's not broken.
You have the power, and the faith,
and the ability to fix it and to mold
it to fill your family's needs.
Sometimes you have to deal with them not necessarily failing
but not accomplishing a goal, and help
them understand that you always learn more from failing.
We say that all the time.
You'll always learn more from failing than from winning, so
what can you learn from this?
So I think it's important for kids
to know that you set a goal, and if you can't quite
meet that goal, it's OK.
You go back.
You change it however you need to,
and then you can move forward in a really positive way.
It was really neat to think that the youth would
have the opportunity to figure out
what it means to have the Spirit speak to them
and that the Lord knows them and will guide them
on their individual journeys and their goals
into achieving their fullest potential.
Everybody has their own talents, and their own strengths,
and their weaknesses.
And I think that this new program definitely
helps highlight their strengths, and it's
cool to be able to see those strengths become
even stronger and being able to share that with other people.
The kids learn how to set their goals
to see what they're going to do for themselves
and how it's going to apply in life,
and I think that's going to be the biggest benefit long term.
Since this program was introduced,
I see the children more interested
in reading their scriptures.
It makes them more spiritual, and they're
doing more better than before.
Because it's not only about learning the things
in the scriptures, but now they are
putting practical aspect of it and joining together.
It has given us opportunity to draw closer to God,
and it has really bonded us together.
I think, by working with these goals as a family unit,
it helps us draw closer together by praying morning and night
as a family, to mention the goals in our family prayer.
He strengthens our family and allows
us to have this time together, and it
seems like more time has become available for us
to spend with each other.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]
I feel like the personal revelation has helped him
with the long-term endurance of this goal
because it's still hard, and he's still sore.
And even today, he came home and was like, "I'm so tired."
And personal revelation has given him
the ability to keep going, even though it's hard.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
When we let them have the power to influence what they're
doing, their confidence grows and they become a strength
and very, very powerful in their influence as youth.
It has been neat to see Ashley develop her ability
to recognize the Holy Ghost through this process.
And she is developing a sense of what she wants out of life
and who she is, and it's made her powerful.
And there's no end to what the Lord has for us.
Eternal life is without end, and He's
going to give you even more to accomplish or to grow into.