Amber Smith, March- Read a Non-Fiction Book

My entire life, I've had a love for reading.  I have fond memories of my mom reading to me as a kid, and have many favorite books I read myself as a child.  All through high school and college, I enjoyed reading my textbooks (nerd alert!) and still found time to read novels.  I love all kinds of books, especially the classics.  My love of Jane Austen's books inspired my study abroad in Great Britain my sophomore year, with special visits to Bath and country manor houses.  I also love reading to my kids, and have read to them almost every night of their lives since they were born.

I still continue to read, but since I graduated from college I've pretty much read only novels and occasionally biographies or parenting books.  I've tried and failed reading most self-help books because they just leave me feeling guilty and dissatisfied with my life or overwhelmed with all the things I should be doing but I'm not!
I'm sure there are many informative and interesting non-fiction books out there, so for March I set the goal to finish two books other than novels.  I chose Daughters in My Kingdom, one of the books for Relief Society, and Drive, a corporate motivational book my husband read for work and keep pressuring me to read.


I started with Daughters in My Kingdom, and once I started I was as hooked as reading a good novel!  I had planned to read it on Sundays, but found myself looking forward to reading it and picking it up all the time during the week.  It's an absolutely amazing book!  It isn't a chronological history, but more a grand scope of the work of Relief Society coupled with personal accounts on a small scale.  Reading this increased my appreciation for Relief Society.  I feel privileged and blessed to belong to such an inspiring organization, the largest women's organization in the world.  I felt strengthened in my role as a woman, wife and mother, and felt like I was doing a good thing, an important work.  Some of my favorite quotes:

"When we qualify ourselves by our worthiness, when we strive with faith nothing wavering to fulfill the duties appointed to us, when we seek the inspiration of the Almighty in the performance of our responsibilities, we can achieve the miraculous."  Thomas S. Monson

"We believe in and are counting on your goodness and your strength, your propensity for virtue and valor, your kindness and courage, your strength and resilience.  We believe in your mission as women of God.  We believe that the Church simply will not accomplish what it must without your faith and faithfulness, your innate tendency to put the well-being of other ahead of your own, and your spiritual strength and tenacity.  And we believe that God's plan is for you to become queens and to receive the highest blessing any woman can receive in time or eternity."  M. Russell Ballard

Now for Drive, I have to admit I failed to finish the book!  It's an interesting premise that we're actually not motivated by outside rewards like money, but intrinsically motivated by completing jobs and tasks.  But I had a hard time getting into it because it's not really applicable to my life right now.  Maybe it would have been a better read if I was managing a corporation of adult employees rather than a household of (lazy and crazy) children.

(I still read for entertainment, and finished Divergent and Insurgent, and started another Mary Russell/ Sherlock Homes book from the series Nora introduced me.)