So today I find that I am very grateful and find comfort in the hope the gospel bring into my life!  A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a talk the Spanish branch on Hope and learned that, Hope is the assurance that God will fulfill all his promised blessing to us.  After a bad day at work I am praying for the Hope that better things are to come.  Sometimes I really don’t like my job and feel trapped and condemned to work there forever.  Sounds dramatic, I know!  But with the economy like it is, with very slim picking on jobs, combined with my sense of self worth……I just can’t see me being able to find anything better.

When I got home today I knelt in prayer to ask for a sense of Hope.  Hoping that the feelings of hope would come……I felt a reassurance from my Heavenly Father that good thing come to those who wait…..And he has many times promised me GREAT THINGS!  I know and have an assurance that the Lord will make good with ALL the promises he has given me as I keep in proper priority those things that are most important.  I am very GRATEFUL FOR HOPE!

I am so very grateful for the relief society program! It truly is a society under the direction of the lord! I am grateful for the great women that I am able to come in contact with and know!

So tonight we had such a fun activity for our Activity Day Girls night!  We had a Secret Service Spy night, the girls were in training to become agents of our Secret Service Agency.  To become an agent the girls had to go through a rigorous training of everyday chores relay style.  We had a blast!

Today I am grateful for all those wonderful girls that are in my group, and for a husband who is so full of wisdom and who is always good at putting things back into perspective!  So last night we had such a great time……and I also had a very good learning moment.  I have about 10 girls that come consistently, they are great girls but when you get so many of them together at once it has been hard for me to keep the girls on task.  One thing that I love about these girls is that they all have something to say…..they all want to feel important and loved.  I sometimes find it very overwhelming when I have 10 girls competing for my attention all at the same time!  It is also so hard to stay on task and get things accomplished in the short hour (45min) that we have for an activity.

I think the girls were having a great time, but when they are having fun ,they get more talkative and excited…..but it also makes it harder to keep things moving.  I told the girls over 5 times to sit down so that we could get started on the next portion of our activity.  When I could see that no one was listening I got upset with them, not crazy upset but I had to get a little firm with them.  Afterward I felt bad, there is just so much I want those girls to get out of these activities and because they are so talkative it is hard sometimes to get to the point of the activities and I always feel so rushed, like we never really accomplish what we need to.  I just want to much for the girls to feel of the spirit and have there testimonies strengthened while they are there.  I feel some days that I don’t even come close.

After talking with my husband about what happened he put somethings back into perspective for me.  I love him so much, he is a very wise, and when the time comes he is going to be a great father! Jason helped me to realize that sometime we can get so caught up in the program of things that we pass over or forget what is important.  I was thinking about my activities……I think sometimes I try too had to get too much done, and get too discouraged when things don’t go exactly how I plan.

These girls are so much fun, they love my attention.  When I first started activity days I took the time to listen to each of the girls when they talked to me.  When one girls was talking I gave her all of my undivided attention…..and as I look back at those times I think the girls had a closer connection to me, and I felt a closer connection to them.  Back then I felt like we didn’t accomplish anything so I changed how I did things, to get more done.  I don’t listen as intently and try and rush through the activities so we never really get to talk to the girls.

Looking back I find that I think we actually accomplished more by accomplishing less….if that makes sense?  The purpose of these activities is to get the girls to be strengthened by the spirit…..to feel the love that our heavenly father has for them.  I have come to learn that it isn’t always the, getting everything done in the activity I planned done, but it is providing a time where the girls can interact with each other, build lasting friendships, build a relationship of trust with a leader, feel the spirit and the love of the lord………and to do that sometime it means not to accomplish everything that I had planned for the girls.

These girls are so great, I have learned so much from them and I am so grateful for all of there strengths and testimonies! I hope that I can show them more fully the love and appreciation that I have for them.  I am also so grateful for Sister Granthum, my helper!  She is always so full of great ideas and works so hard to help me pull off the activities we plan!  She is great!

I am so very grateful for warm snuggly blankets.  It has been a cold, windy day outside and my office is freezing.  I have to keep a space heater on all day just to keep my fingers from feeling like they are going to fall off!  right now I am sitting on the couch snuggled in a nice warm blanket and am loving it!  I am finally starting to feel warm!  The only other thing that would make this better would be a cup of hot coco!

The other day, on my way to work, I was stopped at a stop sign and looked out my window.  I saw the cutest little bird playing in the street and it made me think of how beautiful all of Gods creations are.  So today……I am Grateful for Gods Creations!  This little bird made me think about our Heavenly Fathers love for us.  My patriarchal blessing says “The lord, who even notices when a sparrow falls to the ground, he will especially watch over his own, and you are one of his.”

I am grateful to know that I am one of Gods Creations…..and not just any of his creations but his daughter!  I know and feel of his love daily and every time I get to enjoy the creations of this world I am reminded of his love for me.  He is there and will always guide and direct my life in the paths it need to go to receive all the blessings he has in store for me.

I am grateful for Sleep!!!!!  It was late last night so I decided to go to sleep rather than write this post!

For the second thing I am grateful for is the weekends, and spending quality time with Jason! I love to have that time off to catch up on things that I want and need to do. Most weekends have been pretty busy for us. This weekend however we had the chance to be lazy, and it was wonderful! I love spending time with my husband and so grateful for the days we have to spend together and relax!