"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* "Well could we reflect upon our lives as individuals. We will soon discover much to prompt our personal gratitude."  President Thomas S. Monson (Ensign, May 1992)

President Brigham Young and the Prophet Joseph gave very much the same warning when they said that ingratitude would be one of the great sins of the Latter-day Saints. I don't think this is because we're less grateful than other people-but that we have so much more to be grateful for. We're so inclined to take our blessings for granted. Most of us haven't known anything else. I haven't. I was born in the Church, under the covenant. I have a father and brothers who are worthy priesthood holders. I have a mother who loves me and filled our home with fun.  I don't believe I fully appreciate it. My family has Family Home Evening and scripture study and family prayer. There is power in our lives that comes from being raised in a home where there was spirituality, but we take it for granted as Latter-day Saints. I assume we don't think it is anything particularly special. 

We live in this wonderful land where we've enjoyed freedom and a high standard of living.  We attend our church meetings in comfortable chapels. We can drink the water right out of the faucet. We can watch General Conference live. We can read the Book of Mormon in our own language. We own more than three pairs of shoes. We are women, born in the greatest time in the history of the world, and endowed with talents and charity. We have flushing toilets and double-soft Charmin. What remarkable blessings.

So, if we live in the land of milk and honey, why is it that all we see are cold leftovers? Why do we think things are going so poorly when, in reality, the Lord is constantly beside us? Pride, maybe? Perhaps lack of remembering tougher times. Maybe we just need to take Elder Neal A. Maxwell's advice that, "In times of darkness, remember there is a difference between passing local cloud cover and general darkness."

President Ezra Taft Benson told the following story: "I well remember a young couple who started farming in Idaho years ago. They had modest means, but they paid a down payment on 40 acres of raw land. They were going into the raising of fruit-peaches particularly. They had leveled the land, brought out the laterals, planted the trees, and then weeded and irrigated and watched until the time had come when they'd have a harvest. This particular spring the orchard was a sea of blossoms, and it looked as though they were going to have a bounteous harvest. Then one night without warning, there came a frost that wiped out practically the entire crop overnight. Well, young John didn't go to church the next Sunday, nor the next Sunday, nor the next Sunday. Finally his good old bishop came out to see what was wrong. He found John out in the field, and he said, "John, we haven't seen you in church for several weeks. What's the matter? Is anything wrong?" John said, "No, bishop, I'm not coming anymore. Do you think I can worship a God who would let this happen to me?" And then he explained to the bishop what had happened. Of course, the bishop felt sorrowful, too, and he expressed it to John. And as he looked down at the ground for a moment, he said, "John, I'm sure the Lord knows that you can't produce the best peaches with frost. But I'm also sure he knows that you can't produce the best men without frost, and the Lord is interested in producing men, not peaches."

Well, John went to church the next Sunday, and another year a harvest came. And I'm sure another frost came, too. But once we have really put our trust and faith in our Savior, we can look beyond our perceived injustices and express thanks for all our luxuries. We can keep the commandment to "thank the Lord thy God in all things" (D&C 59-7).

"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea more." D&C 78:19

President Thomas S. Monson, in the October 1998 General Conference, encouraged us to show more gratitude for and to think to thank our mothers, our fathers, our teachers, our friends, our country, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is an excellent list when we are looking for somewhere to begin. We can be thankful for all they have done for us, and then show our gratitude by doing something for them.

"Gratitude is deeper than thanks. Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.  Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts." -President David O. McKay

I hope that we can be happy where we are, be grateful for our many blessings here and now; endure the frost when it comes and make the most of it. May we truly show gratitude in all things.

Expressing Your Gratitiude

1. Write a thank you note. Tell someone you enjoyed their Relief Society lesson, or their testimony, or thank someone for sitting next to you and saying hello. They will be thrilled to be remembered.

2.  Pray a prayer of gratitude.  Take some time once a week, or every day if you're feeling especially thankful, to express only thanks. See if you can fill 20 minutes with only thoughts of gratitude. Once you get going, it's amazing how fast other blessing will come to remembrance.

3.  Write in your journal, 'How did God bless me today?" If you do that long enough and with faith, you will find yourself remembering blessings.  Spencer W Kimball said, "Journals are a way of counting our blessings and of leaving an inventory of these blessings for our posterity."

4.  Play the bubble game. This is a game that a friend and I came up with one summer evening when we were feeling particularly bummed. We got a bottle of bubbles and would take turns saying something we were thankful for and then
blowing bubbles. There's something about those bubbles that makes you even more grateful than before for your blessings.

5.  Get up and DO something. Bake some cookies. Babysit. Shovel snow. Ask a friend to go on a walk. Go to the temple.  Be there, and be willing to serve. Don't wait to be asked.

6.  Study about gratitude and thanksgiving in the scriptures. A few places to start are D&C 59:15-21; 59:5-7; 46:7,32; 78:19; 98:1; 136:28.