Monday, November 28, 2011

Attitude of Gratitude

So this past week I had the lovely opportunity to travel to the beautiful town of Parowan, Utah for Thanksgiving with my parents and sisters.  I went boarding, hung out with friends, and had a good time.  It was a typical Thanksgiving feast, and of course we were laughing before the prayer even began, nothing too out of the ordinary.  Except maybe the fact that Tay wrecked her car on some black ice and took out a tree and lost some essential parts to her car.  I wrecked the four wheeler, and dad rolled his jeep.  

Oh and I got a good fortune in my fortune cookie for once.  But rather than that, it was a pretty normal week.  No one was injured too badly, except maybe some vehicles, and through all of that I guess I really have been thinking a lot about gratitude.

A sister at church today said, "Grateful People are Happy People."  I really started thinking about how true that statement is.  I am the most happy, when I am grateful for my blessings.  It was just a profound statement I guess. 

 But I also loved a saying I came across the other day that said, "What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?"  I found that like a day or two before Thanksgiving. Let's just say it gave me the motivation I needed to re evaluate how my prayers had been going and make the resolution to be more thankful.


And one last thing I heard today at church really struck a chord with me.  A counselor in our Bishopric was telling a story about a bus driver he had become acquainted with.  He asked the bus driver one day, How are you doing today?"  And the bus driver said, "I am too blessed to be stressed, and too anointed to be disappointed!" 


I loved that. What that bus driver said I feel like has changed my life today.  I am truly so blessed with so many blessings.  When I have an attitude of gratitude I don't have any reason to stress or get worked up.  I truly have seen over the past week that I am a happier person when I am grateful.

(OK, So I am still waiting for this to come true.)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Happiness Happens.....

I haven't posted in a long time, and its definitely not because I am too busy.  Mostly it is because I forgot for a short while that I had a blog.  Whoops! And then today I randomly remembered, or maybe I was tired of looking for jobs and working on my resume so I looked for any distraction and my blog came to my mind.  Eh, it is what it is.

So my thought today comes from a scripture in Mormon 9:14.  The last part of this verse stuck out to me.  It says, "...he that is happy shall be happy still; and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still."
(Don't these little penguins look oh so happy, I love it.)

I've been pondering on this, and today it dawned on me that if we cannot figure out how to get happy in this life, then we are not going to be happy in the next.  I think about being happy a lot, because I see so many unhappy people.  I know it's hard times, and the world sucks sometimes, but there is so much to be happy about.

I feel I am relatively happy and I attribute my happiness to the single fact that I know God loves me, and I know for a fact He did not send me, or anyone else for that matter, here to earth to be miserable.  He just would not do that.

 I had this epiphany today when I started getting a bit frustrated and cranky.  I guess I just realized that no matter what happens, if we want to be eternally happy, we had better get happy now.  Plus there is always something to be happy about! 

For example like the fact that Elder Beckwith comes home in 52 days, I am excited to say the least!