Sometimes we make bad consumer decisions

A few months ago, the Heard Scout Pueblo, was is part of the Boy Scouts was selling off extra camping equipment that they no longer needed.  They advertized it through emails for months before it actually happened.  My husband and I decided to go see if we could pick up some cheap dutch ovens because we wanted to learn more about that art.  We ended up picking up my father-in-law on the way.  (We left the kids at home with a babysitter)  It was kind of sprinkling the whole way to the sale.  We kept on going though.  As we were approaching the site, we noticed that cars were parked out front 1/4 of mile before we even got there.  We saw people scurrying to get in line.  Not to mention the rain was now coming down harder, and everything was wet and muddy.  Instead of stopping, we just drove by and decided that it wasn't worth it.  There was even more cars lined up as we passed in the other direction.  Then the whole way home my father-in-law gave us a lecture on how time is money, space is money, etc.  He then offered up his dutch ovens for whenever we were interested and he has already committed the space for them.  This is a good example of time being an issue.  We drove all the way there, and upon arriving decided that it wouldn't even be worth the time to get out.  How many dutch ovens do they really have anyways? 

This week we also learned about making bad decisions that we regret later.  A few years ago, I had a non-member friend and I would go to the zoo every week (without fail, even in the hot summer).  Of course we developed a dear sweet relationship.  We had many opportunities for gospel study.  I taught her the 4th discussion over lunch one day.  One night she called us up and said that her whole Sunday School class wanted to come to visit our ward.  Of course my husband and I were thrilled.  What an opportunity.  However they wanted to come on a Fast Sunday.  My husband and I both being missionaries decided that you can never predict a Fast Sunday so we swayed them to come the next week instead.  We also decided that we would go to their church on Fast Sunday.  They came the following week.  Everything was a disaster.  The meeting itself was kind of lame, no one came to say hello (even with us informing other about our great opportunity), only 2 couples could come instead of the whole class, and our friend's daughter was in nursery with our daughter and got scared and was brought in (which quickly made their decision an easy one....It was time to go, even though church hadn't ended.  We heard that the Fast Sunday had been amazing.  A whole family had been baptized and was confirmed that day.  They each bore powerful testimonies.  My husband and I feel awful that we messed with Heavenly Father's plan.  Since this experience, our friendship changed and we never had another gospel conversation again.

"Try not to spend all of your time on making the perfect decision; often times there isn't just one option."  This is a quote from our readings this week.  It is so true.  Lots of times we are having to make decisions based on two good things.  Heavenly Father is just giving us free agency to decide which path to take, knowing that we will grow and learn from either path.

Not only should we budget our money, we should also budget our time.  "By learning to budget our time, we are better able to make good choices and reap greater blessings in the end."  (This was also from our readings this week.)  This really hit home hard.  I feel like I could do a better job with my time, especially if I have so little of it these days being in school.  Often times I will find myself playing Candy Crush, instead of doing laundry or whatever.  I do well with check lists, so a few months ago, I was trying to have my friend make me the ultimate check list in vinyl to put on a cute frame to help me organize my time better.  It ended up being too hard to cut.  But reading this lesson, I think I figured out another way to create a way to have my checklist every day.  I really need to do this so that I can get everything done that I need to do every day.  I need to stop wasting time.  My sister once told me that if you know your mother-in-law is coming over whether in two hours or 20 minutes, you will still get done the same amount of work.  Setting time limits is a great idea, because you will still get everything done, but just faster.  I spend a lot of time on school work.  I bet that if I could set time limits for school, that I would be able to fit in more household chores, or time with my kids.