Sacrament Talk from 22 November 2015

Calum's sacrament talk from a couple of weeks ago:
Gratitude

"Good morning brothers and sisters. I did a little introduction a few weeks ago but I'll give you another brief rundown, My name is Elder Yule I'm from Midvale, Utah. I have 2 older sisters, the oldest has a 2 year old boy and they are living at home with my mom. The other sister is in her junior year at BYU-Idaho. I have I've been out on my mission for about 6 weeks. I'm still a greenie, and Elder Bates is training me up to be a true proper missionary. And he's done a great job so far. I love Elder Bates.

Today I'm going to speak on gratitude. So what is gratitude? Pretty simple, being thankful for something. True to the faith describes gratitude as "an uplifting, exalting attitude."  So it's more than
just being thankful for something. It's a whole attitude. It's not being thankful for something just once. It's having a mindset of being grateful for every little blessing that comes your way. How do we have a "gratitude attitude"?

I think it might be a little bit harder than we first imagine. Often times it's hard to see our many blessings. Just the past couple weeks I've kind of been complaining about how I don't like the taste of
California water. There's just something about Utah water that makes it taste so good! Utah water is just so good! I've started to realize how ridiculously nitpicky that really is.  There are so many people
all over the world that don't have any clean water to drink at all. "Alma 34: 38 in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and
blessings which he doth bestow upon you." Just think of how truly blessed we are to have drinkable water. When we start to be thankful for all that we have, even the little things, that's when our
gratitude attitude will start to grow.

Being on a mission you start to realize that you are blessed in just about every aspect. We visit people with houses the size of a bedroom.  We visit people with barely enough money to feed their own families. But an interesting fact is that most of the time, those families living in those circumstances are often times the ones who are so willing to feed us as missionaries, and welcome us into their home. "3 Nephi 10: 10 And the earth did cleave together again, that it stood; and the mourning, and the weeping, and the wailing of the people who were spared alive did cease; and their mourning was turned into joy, and their lamentations into the praise and thanksgiving unto the Lord Jesus Christ, their Redeemer." The people who, from most of our perspectives, have very little to be thankful for always seem to have a more developed attitude for gratitude. Their mourning was turned into joy. I have found that the reason for this is because they do not see world possessions as things to be extremely grateful for, rather they are always more thankful for the blessings of this church. They certainly see their little house as a blessing, but more so than their house being a blessing they realize how much of a blessing it is to know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that through him we can
feel love and peace and hope.

We do need to be thankful for all that we have, and they are blessings, but the way to get a gratitude attitude is by having genuine gratitude for your testimony of Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ's love for you. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and through him my sins, though they be as scarlet, they can be as white as snow. I am so grateful for this knowledge I have about my Savior."