A Little Drawing Lesson

"He looks like a roly-poly!"

My companion and I were trying to draw an elephant on a sticky note. We had a couple of images of elephants that we were trying to use as something to go off of but it wasn't working very well. I'm no artist. We were struggling to get the proportions right so that it would actually look like a presentable little elephant.
Finally my companion threw in the towel, per se, and said, "You do it." Ah! So I thought for a couple of minutes about elephants. I looked at the three images that we had and went back to the drawing board. There was nothing wrong with the elephant that we had, but I wanted this drawing to look more like an actual elephant instead of a caricature. Some things needed to be changed. I took the penciled image that we already had and began drawing a new elephant on top of it. Suddenly I had an epiphany! The drawing came together and looked like a beautiful little elephant!
I realized that once there was an image or a vision of the elephant I wanted drawn in my head, my hands could put it on paper. I simply had to have the correct vision.

Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." If we don't have at least an idea of what we want to accomplish, we aren't going to get very far. Let's say that a king decides that his kingdom needs going to go to war against another nation. He needs a vision or a cause in order to rally the people together to fight. Then he needs a plan: what is he going to do to accomplish the vision of winning this war? He is then accountable to the people in the kingdom, the people he is counseling with, and God for what he does, how hard and effectively he works, and what is accomplished. Elder M. Russell Ballard said, "I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential." Vision is important!

With my little elephant, I knew what I wanted done. I had a vision: there was going to be a cute little elephant on this little piece of paper. What did I need to do in order to accomplish the vision? I needed to practice. (There were a number of little pieces of paper on the table and in the garbage by the time I was finished.) I was accountable to my companion (who also wanted this elephant drawn)as to whether or not I finished the drawing of the elephant.
It may seem very silly and small but if I hadn't cared and if I hadn't had the desire to see this little elephant drawn, I would never have accomplished it. I was a little shocked when I finished! It actually looked like an elephant and I was able to show myself that I can draw hard things! Without a vision, "the people perish." However, Elder Ballard continued and said, "When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life." With a vision, "...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." (Alma 37:6)