Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope we can all stop and think about what we're truly grateful for. I know I personally get lost in my own problems and forget to see the good. When I think of being grateful I think of the talk by President Utchdorf called Grateful in Any Circumstance:

"My dear brothers and sisters, the choice is ours. We can choose to limit our gratitude, based on the blessings we feel we lack. Or we can choose to be like Nephi, whose grateful heart never faltered. When his brothers tied him up on the ship—which he had built to take them to the promised land—his ankles and wrists were so sore “they had swollen exceedingly,” and a violent storm threatened to swallow him up in the depths of the sea. “Nevertheless,” Nephi said, “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.”

We can choose to be like Job, who seemed to have everything but then lost it all. Yet Job responded by saying, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return … : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

We can choose to be like the Mormon pioneers, who maintained a spirit of gratitude during their slow and painful trek toward the Great Salt Lake, even singing and dancing and glorying in the goodness of God.⁶ Many of us would have been inclined to withdraw, complain, and agonize about the difficulty of the journey.

We can choose to be like the Prophet Joseph Smith, who, while a prisoner in miserable conditions in Liberty Jail, penned these inspired words: “Dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.”

We can choose to be grateful, no matter what."

These little detail shots were all taken on my Nauvoo trip. It was amazing to be where many hardships took place. Elder Holland said, "The tests of life are tailored for our own best interests, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that our challenges will be the one reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way." 

Even though our lives all have trials we can see great blessings through them!

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!!