Some of the most upsetting days of the semester stem from goodbyes to the missionaries I teach. Naturally, I grow to sincerely love each district, each missionary, as they pass through the MTC. As tradition, on the last day before their departure, we organize a testimony meeting. Perhaps this event becomes the most spiritual and most fulfilling. The spiritual development of these 19 year old boys is indescribable. While listening to their testimonies, I noticed an evolving trend. Each elder expressed his gratitude for three specific things: 1) The power of prayer 2) the Savior's Atonement 3) the opportunity to serve a mission. I could not help but think of the impact a mission has on a young man or woman. More specifically, I was reminded of "a thankful heart."
I hope this Holiday season we take in account three of the English language's most meaningful yet neglected words: Thank you, and Remember. Looking back on history, as America divided on the moral issue of slavery, President Abraham Lincoln reminded citizens of the eternal principle of gratitude and of its unifying, peace-binding power:
" We have been the recipients of the choices bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious land which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us:
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."
Abraham Lincoln
Gratitude and humility are interchangeable. As our country currently encounters division, strife, pride, and impatience, I hope we "remember" to say "thank you" not only to family and friends, but more importantly, to our Creator.
