Category Archives: Personal stories

What is Your Love Language?

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Hearts
If you can figure out what your love language is, and the love language of those people that are part of your life, it will help you understand why people do the things they do. Have you ever wondered why some people love to give you gifts, or why your husband can’t understand why you don’t give him praise? This chapter will help you understand this better. In his book The Five Love Languages, author Gary Chapman discusses how knowing the love languages of others can improve your relationships with them.
Words of Affirmation
: This is when you say how nice your spouse looks, or how great the dinner tasted. These words will also build your mate’s self image and confidence. This is my love language, so it is easy for me to give others praise.
Quality Time:
 Some spouses believe that being together, doing things together and focusing on one another is the best way to show love. If this is your partner’s love language, turn off the TV now and then and give one another some undivided attention.
Gifts
: It is universal in human cultures to give gifts. Gifts don’t have to be expensive to send a powerful message of love. Spouses who never give gifts to those who truly enjoy receiving gifts, will find themselves with a spouse who feels neglected and unloved.
Acts of Service:
 Discovering how you can best do something for your spouse will require time and creativity. These acts of service like vacuuming, cooking dinner, planting a garden, etc., need to be done with joy in order to be perceived as a gift of love.
Physical Touch:
 Sometimes just stroking your spouse’s back, holding hands, or a peck on the cheek will fulfill this need.

My Family’s Love Languages
My daughter Jessie, loves quality time. For many years we have had special times when it is just the two of us. We have gone to the Utah State Fair, rode bikes, and have gone to the sand dunes. I cherish our time we spend together.
Jessie loves little children. If you can’t find Jessie she is probably helping one of our neighbor’s kids. Jessie gets a gold star when it comes to acts of service. When the doorbell rings, most of the time it is a four year- old wanting to play with Jessie.
My son Daniel also loves doing acts of service. Every day without being asked he will clean up after dinner. Even when my wife Cassie will say, “I can wash the dishes” Daniel will say, “No mom you cooked, I am going to clean up.” What a blessing to have a son who is so considerate. Daniel also loves quality time. Every night the two of us will talk about our day before we go to bed. When everyone else has fallen asleep, we love this quiet time together talking about everything and anything.
My son Nathan loves gifts. Nathan loves it when Cassie buys him special treats, even just little things like orange juice, or getting him socks when his get holes in them. Nathan is great at randomly doing kind things for others. One thing that Nathan was wonderful at doing is,writing to us every week while he was in Mexico on his church mission. This was a huge act of service keeping connected with his family.
My daughter Stephanie also loves gifts. Last year we were at a boutique in a small town. Cassie bought her a bracelet for our granddaughter. This really made her day. Quality time is huge for Stephanie. Anytime she can get together with family and friends she does. Even when she lived in northern Utah she loved to come visit us every chance she could
My son Rick really enjoys quality time. He loves doing anything that makes you laugh, Rick loves playing games or being in nature. My favorite thing to do with Rick is go hiking or just talking. Rick also likes words of affirmation. It is very easy for him to accept words of praise as well as giving others words of praise.
My wife Cassie loves physical touch. Anytime I can sense Cassie has had a rough day at work I will give her a neck or back massage. Cassie also loves to do random acts of service for others. I am very blessed to have such a caring person as my wife in my life. If anyone is sick in our neighborhood, Cassie is usually right there with dinner for the family.
As for myself, I love words of affirmation. I will do a lot of extra work just to hear someone say thanks for all you do. Those simple words are like music to my ears. I love it. If people don’t know your love language, let them know. I like to make it very clear that I like words of affirmation. Learn the miracle of the love languages. It will change your life, and the lives of others.

Goals Take You Places

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Daniel and Leonard FishA lesson I learned from Skip Ross, at a youth summer camp in Michigan, was how to prioritize and set goals. What a thrill it was to learn great wisdom every morning from this wonderful man. I learned that a goal not written down is only a wish. Also, visualization helps you reach your goals. Put things you want to achieve on 3×5 cards. Read them every morning and night. Also, cut out pictures of the things you want. Put them on a poster board so you can look at them daily.
Before I went to the Circle A. Ranch I was getting a C+ average in school. The next school year, I was getting a B+ average. I was also very shy. I didn’t like this. My transformation into the person I am today started in high school as a result of setting goals.
You can become anything you want to become in this life. Skip Ross would say, “Say yes to your potential.” Anything you can conceive and believe, you can achieve.
About six years ago, I realized I had stopped dreaming and writing down goals. Life comes and goes quickly. Then, in the blink of an eye, one year turned into ten.
I have always loved listening to motivational cassette tapes and audio books. So I started listening to them again with almost an obsession. Some audio books I listen to on a regular basis. In most of these audio books they talked about the importance of first deciding exactly what you want. Be specific by writing down your goals and visualizing what you want to achieve with emotion.
I got excited with the idea of making a vision board after I heard the story of a man who wanted to live in beautiful mansion. He found a picture of a home in a magazine. He cut out the mansion from the magazine. Then he put it on his dream board. Four years later he was unpacking his dream board from one of his moving boxes. He realized the home on his dream board was the home he had just moved into. Dreams do come true. You can achieve any goal you want to achieve, if you believe.
I made a dream board putting it on my bedroom wall where I can see it every day. One of the things I put on the dream board is, “Our family loves to travel,” with pictures of fun places to travel to.
We have traveled more in the past six years then I ever dreamed of. We have been to Washington D.C, to see the monuments; Maryland to visit Cassie’s Dad; In Virginia we went to see George Washington’s home; Pennsylvania, to visit the Amish and Gettysburg, Delaware, to swim in the Atlantic Ocean. We went to California having fun visiting the Pacific Ocean and Disneyland. Later we went to Washington and Oregon to visit Cassie’s brother and go to the beach. Then we went with my parents to visit the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park over a long school holiday.
Another thing that my wife Cassie and I like to do is go to a community theatre where we have seasons tickets. We see wonderful musicals like My Fair Lady, or magical plays like A Christmas Carol. These are things we didn’t do until we put them on our dream board. I get excited just writing about our adventures.
The next thing that I do is set a deadline for my goal. I wrote on my dream board, “I am excited we have bought season tickets to the community theater. Today is August 1, 2011.” Every year, this is when we buy our tickets.
Every year we prioritize our goals, then we take action. Smaller goals don’t take as much planning. Our goal to go to the Grand Canyon was easier to achieve because we live closer to Arizona.
Our goal to go to the Oregon Coast took more planning. We knew we wanted to rent a beach house and it would be more costly, so it took action on our part by planning to save our money and reserve the beach house. It was well worth the dream when we achieved this goal. Remember to do something everyday that will move you toward your most important goal, whatever it is at the time.

The Contest Winner

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Pile of moneyI read a book recently about a family with ten children from Defiance, Ohio. The father was a drunk and the mother helped supplement the family income by entering contests. Many of the contests were, “In 25 words or less tell us why…. “You like our peanut butter.” Whatever the contest was that week, she would enter. The entire family would get involved by finding entrance forms for every contest possible and finding labels that needed to be attached to the entrance forms. Mom would fill out multiple contest forms with all the kids names on the forms to increase her families chances of winning. Over the years the family won dozens of prizes. Two prizes were cars and the last prize was valued at more than $10,000 dollars. The thing that I find so interesting is the families last contest won, saved their home from getting foreclosed with just hours to spare. I believe this family knew their mom could win this contest. With the power of the entire family believing this miracle would happen, it became a reality. With God nothing is impossible. Their inner belief system created what seemed an impossibility. Nothing is a coincidence in the eyes of God. Albert Einstein said, “Your imagination is a preview of what is to come.”

My Three Sons

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Frankincense Is FantasticMost people go through life never writing down their goals. Be one of the 5% that does, and watch your life transform before your eyes. One thing that is important is for our sons to serve a two year mission for our church at the age of 18-19. This can only happen if you are found worthy by your local church leaders, and save up enough money to finance your own mission. I put on our dream board that we were excited to have all three of our sons serve honorable missions for our church. At the time I didn’t see how our oldest son would go on a mission. He even said he wasn’t going. He ended up serving an amazing mission to France, just loving it.

I was never preachy or pushy with my second son going on a mission. The priorities of my son were not about being a missionary. If he would have told me a year prior to his mission that he was going, I would have been really surprised. I just let God be in control of the situation. A year later, our son went on a mission to Mexico City, and did a fantastic job.
Our third son has completed a mission to Paris France. He loved serving the people of France. He also did a great job.

People fit into one of three categories. Complacent, in a crisis, or have a purpose.
Complacent people: just go with the flow where ever life takes them they go. These people are like a water current finding the path of least resistance.
People in crisis: whatever is going on in these peoples life is always a crisis, with plenty of drama, and their world always seems to be turned upside down.
People with a purpose: people that always know where they are going. These are very driven individuals that are very caring and know exactly where they are going in life
What kind of a person are you? If you want to do your best and achieve your goals, be a person with a purpose.

What are Affirmations?

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Affrimations for homelessWhen I was 17 I went to Rockford, Michigan, to go to the Circle A Ranch directed by Skip Ross. One of the lessons Skip taught us was the importance of positive affirmations.

What are Affirmations?
Every thought you think, every word you say is an affirmation. All of our self-talk or inner dialogue is a stream of affirmations. We are continually affirming subconsciously with our words and thoughts, and this flow of affirmations is creating our life experience in every moment.

Our beliefs are just learned thought patterns that we have developed since childhood. Many of these work well for us, but others may now be working against us. They are dysfunctional and may be sabotaging us from achieving what we believe we want.
Every affirmation we think or say is a reflection of our inner truth or beliefs. This is our reality. It is important to realize that many of these “inner truths” may not actually be true for us now, or may be based on invalid or inappropriate impressions we constructed as children, which if examined as an adult can be exposed as inappropriate.

My brother Wes was shopping in Salt Lake City when he called me after making a very interesting observation. He told me, “I see many homeless people holding signs that read” “Homeless please help.” Wes went on to say, “Aren’t these people reading and writing affirmations every day that keep them believing they will be homeless when they hold up these signs.” My brother is right. Our subconscious mind uses the behavior patterns we have learned to automatically respond and react to many everyday events in our life that keep us doing the same things day after day, and year after year.

Our learned responses and thought patterns enable us to automatically respond to circumstances quickly and easily. Problems arise, however, if at an early stage some of the foundation beliefs on which many of the others are built were formed from a different perspective. Maybe the strategy was appropriate for a perceived difficult circumstance; however, often such beliefs are totally inappropriate for succeeding in the real world as adults.

You can use “Positive Affirmations,” which are usually short positive statements targeted at a specific subconscious set of beliefs, to challenge and undermine negative beliefs and to replace them with positive self-nurturing beliefs with emotion. It is a kind of “brainwashing”, only, you get to choose which negative beliefs to wash away. The way these statements are constructed is extremely important.

It is important to remember, of course, that everything we say and think is an affirmation. Using positive affirmation statements forces us to keep focused on our inner goals and reminds us to think consciously about our words and thoughts and to modify them to reflect our positive affirmation.

One Students Triumph

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The Bicycle VictoryI love my job because everyday I get to serve others. I work with teachers and children at an elementary school. I thrive on making this world a better place, because I am always looking for ways to serve. I love interacting with the students each day in the lunchroom and helping teachers.

Most kids are looking for validation. A few years ago a student came up to me saying, “I just picked up some garbage on the floor, so what do I get for doing that?” I get this question a lot. Then I had a moment of inspiration when I said, “The more kind things you do for others the bigger your aura will be.” Then I continued to explain that everyone has an invisible light around them and the more you do for others the bigger your light will be.
His eyes lit up with excitement when I told him, “He had a big aura because he liked doing nice things for others.” A few days went by when he asked me, “What is the name of that light again?” I told him and he got excited as he picked up a piece of paper on the floor in the lunchroom. At the end of the year this student won a bike for being one of eight students who had improved the most in academics that year. It was fun to see him raising his arms in triumph knowing he did a great job in school.

Another way I experience small moments of joy is when I see parents take charge of their children’s lives with encouraging healthy eating, exercise, and removing harmful prescription drugs from their daily routine, using essential oils when possible. Something as simple as peppermint or lemon essential oil can be life changing. When you see kids that have signs of ADHD using a focus blend, and vetiver essential oils, who are now focusing in school, this is a huge victory.

Why Affirmations Work

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I Believe in MiraclesBy choosing to think and say positive affirmations as true, the subconscious is forced into one of three reactions – avoidance, reappraisal and acceptance. The bigger the issue the bigger the gap between the positive affirmation and the perceived inner truth, and the more likely that one is going to experience resistance.

This is where the subconscious finds it easier to stay with its perceived inner truth and avoid the challenge, using any means at its disposal to avoid examining the issue.
You will recognize this reaction by a strong negative feeling inside as you state the positive affirmations. Equally, if your experience is a sense of joy and well being, your mind is instinctively responding to something it believes to be true.

When you get this emotion you know your affirmations are working! When you are continually repeating affirmations with conviction and passion, this will help remove even the strongest resistance. Once the resistance is broken, your subconscious is able to re-examine the core belief and patterns you have been working on. The effect can be startling, and things can change very quickly as the dysfunctional beliefs get identified and replaced by your own new inner truth.

Depending on how deep into your consciousness these beliefs lay, every other learned pattern and belief that relied on the original belief as a foundation becomes unfounded. The subconscious has to reexamine them all. This can lead to a period of self reflection.

Due to the fact that affirmations reprogram your thought patterns, they change the way you think and feel about things. Since you have replaced dysfunctional beliefs with your own new positive beliefs, positive change comes easily and naturally. This will start to reflect in your external life. You will start to experience major changes for the better in many aspects of your life.

Wipe Out Negatives

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Toilet PaperTwo of the heroes in my life are my parents. Their positive attitudes are contagious. For years my mom has answered the phone with, “It’s a great day at the Fishes.” One day when she answered the phone, the person not identifying herself said, “It really is true.” Then she hung up. All she wanted, was to hear my mother say those positive words when she answered the phone.

For years my mother has hung a sign over the toilet paper that says, “Wipe out negatives.” This always gets people to smile. My dad, when asked how he is doing, will say I am doing great, but I am getting better. What a great attitude he has!

My dad loves to ask people how they are doing and when their response is positive he says, “Serves you right.” You know, he is absolutely right. Our attitude reflects a lot about who we are.

I remember being a young, tired father, frustrated that my son would not stop crying one evening. As long as I was irritated my son sensed my negative attitude and energy towards him. Then I started showing him unconditional love. He then could sense my love toward him, and stopped crying.

How many times are we critical of ourselves? Many people are great at verbally beating themselves up with words of, “I am not good enough, too fat, too dumb, too whatever, you insert your own word.” No one knows enough to be a pessimist.

The Disappearing Bumps

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Screen shot 2015-02-21 at 7.57.11 AM
About eight months ago I noticed a couple of bumps on my chest. Just large enough to be slightly concerned, but not overly excited about. I thought I would try rubbing some essential oils on the bumps to see what would happen. I mixed 8 drops frankincense and 3 drops each of, helichrysum, juniper berry, thyme, geranium and lavender into a 15ml bottle. Then I filled the rest of the bottle up with fractionated coconut oil.

I didn’t think much about it. I started rubbing this mixture on the bumps on my chest as part of my daily routine when I would get out of the shower. We all have many routines that we do, that become muscle memory. That’s what started to happen with me.

One day as I was going through the motions I stopped to feel my chest where the bumps were. I had to really search the area on my chest to find the bumps. I have the slightest bumps that have dramatically reduced in size. I have no idea if these bumps could have posed a threat. I am grateful to have tools in my medicine cabinet that are natural, without harmful side effects that prescription drugs have.

Life is Fragile

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Leonard Fish      When I was 11 or 12 I was always inventing games to play with my brother Mel. One day we thought it would be fun to play tag in a large Chinese Elm tree. We were playing tag for only a few minutes when it was my brothers turn to catch me. I went way out on the edge of one of the branches where Mel was unable to tag me so he did what he thought would get me to climb off the branch; he started shaking the branch. The branch broke and I fell head first to what I thought was my death. Then another broken branch that was pointing almost straight up, but at a slight angle, caught my pants going through my belt, then poking through a pant leg with only a few minor scrapes on my leg. If I would have fallen one inch to the right I would have fallen on my head and most likely death or serious injury would have occurred. If I fell slightly to the left one inch I would have been stabbed by the broken branch with a much more terrible outcome. As a result of this predicament, I was hanging upside down unable to free myself from the tree. My brother Mel ran to get my dad to get me out of my unusual situation. The lesson that I learned from this is to never play tag in a tree and that life is fragile. You never know what can happen from one moment to the next. This is the first time I realized, we are not invincible.

The older I get the more I realize life is fragile. If you take care of your body you have a better chance of living a longer, healthier life. This is why I love using essential oils, because they help keep my body at an optimum lever of performance. Jumping in trees is just as dangerous for your body as people beating up their insides with bad eating habits, and taking prescription drugs with their terrible side effects. We can change. Lets go do the right things.