Gratitude.

Whenever I see my manager at work he always smiles at me really big and says "hey lady, it's a great day to be alive!" and gives me a high five. It puts a smile on my face and reminds me that ya, it is a great day to be alive... i have so many things that I am thankful for.

Today in relief society, we learned all about gratitude. The teacher started out by drawing a chart on the board. Down the left side is when things are going well, or when things don't go well, and along the top is big/small things that help us remember to be grateful.

	BIG	SMALL
WELL	3 Nephi 11:15-17 When Christ comes down to visit the people. What a great big moment for these people and how grateful they must have been.	Alma 34:37-38 Amulek reminds the people that they live in thanksgiving daily. A small thing to show the people that they have many things to be grateful for.
DON’T	Moroni 1:1-3 Everyone Moroni knows has died and he is the only one left, wandering wherever for the safety of his own life. He never once complains, and in the last verse in chapter 10, he wrties "I am brought foth triumphant through the air to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah".	(we ran out of time to get to this box so I tried filling it in myself) 1 Nephi 2:4 Lehi tells his family that they must "take nothing with them, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness". This is a time when I think thing were not going so well for the children of Lehi. Who would want to leave everything behind? But Nephi obeyed, and I am sure realized that he was very grateful to have a righteous father that lead them out of Jerusalem.

As I was listening to this lesson I realized that I have so many things to be grateful for. I could fill out this chart on my own of personal experiences I've had.

President Thomas S. Monson gave a talk called "An Attitude of Gratitude". He says:

A popular refrain from the 1940s captured the thought:

Accentuate the positive;

Eliminate the negative.

Latch on to the affirmative;

Don’t mess with Mr. In-between.

Good advice then. Good advice now.

This is a wonderful time to be living here on earth. Our opportunities are limitless. While there are some things wrong in the world today, there are many things right, such as teachers who teach, ministers who minister, marriages that make it, parents who sacrifice, and friends who help.

We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues.

We have so many things to be grateful for. Let's live our lives with an attitude of gratitude. I recommend reading the full version of this talk here. And I challenge you (and I am going to do this too!) take some time every day to fill out a gratitude journal. Just write down a few things each day that you are thankful for to really show yourself how blessed you are!
here's my new blog: My Gratitude Journal