Happy Thanksgiving!

We truly have much to be grateful for. I've been pretty down the last few weeks due to my slow job search and the elections, but it's good to remember that life is ALWAYS filled with reasons to be happy and grateful. I know that I'll find a job eventually, and Obama's presidency will only be 4 years, and that's a good place to start.

Of course the greatest blessings are first and foremost the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without that, then I wouldn't appreciate or value ANYTHING else as much as I do. Without that, even my family wouldn't be quite as special because I wouldn't exist within the reality of our being an ETERNAL family. My family is a close second, however. My beautiful wife who loves me and my boys is the best thing. I love Alice! She makes me feel such a deep love for everything good. Our boys are also so wonderful. I experience a joy and happiness I never knew existed when I simply sit back and look at them. Seeing their smiles, hearing their laughs, deepens my joy to a degree I have never before known in my life.

Beyond my own immediate family, I am grateful for my own (and Alice's) parents, siblings, and aunts, uncles, and cousins who I love just as much. Families are awesome, and even though I don't see my extended family NEARLY as much as I would like to, I feel just as committed and willing to help any of them out as I would my own immediate family.

This is a great country we live in. The freedoms it affords are truly worth fighting for. We should be proud to be set apart from the rest of the world, because our Lord Himself made that distinction thousands of years ago. His words, His prophecy, weren't limited to that time only. They were words for any group of people who would inhabit the land. The United States of America is truly a city set on a hill. Just as being Latter-day Saints makes us peculiar, different, and at times even a target, being an American is a unique privilege that sets us apart from the world, of course in a non-boastful or wrongly prideful way. Because this nation is great, there are hundreds of thousands who currently serve in our Armed Forces and millions more who have served. . . .and among that number, countless known and unknown who have sacrificed their lives. They have taken all that they have, were, and ever hoped to be, and laid it upon the altar of sacrifice in defense of freedoms and liberties which are truly worth living for because they are also worth dying for.

There is so much more to be grateful for. Throughout history, there have been people that deserve our adulation. There have been events which clearly show the hand of God divinely manifest in the lives of His children on the Earth. The fact that He cares enough about us to make it known through often small, minute, yet spiritually intimate experiences is cause enough to celebrate for an entire day reveling in gratitude for His divine goodness. Not only through our past, but in our present is much to be grateful for. Another great blessing is friendship. I consider my family my friends, and my friends are like family. Alice and I have been blessed with great friends both as individuals before we met and friends we have come to know since our marriage.

We are surrounded by so many things that give us cause to be grateful. Unfortunately, in today's world, it is harder than ever to see them. It seems that solitude is extinct. With cell phones, iPods, computers, and a myriad of other gizmos and gadgets, we can be constantly inundated with noise, distraction, and ever connected to the world. It's no coincidence that Satan is trying to destroy the very thing we need to draw close to the Spirit, hear the Holy Ghost, and receive inspiration, that is peace, silence, and time to ourselves where we are free to ponder and pray without fear of receiving a text message or phone call. Conveniences are not evil, but too much of anything is. I am grateful for the experiences in my life that have helped me learn to find frequent opportunites to turn off the cell phone, get away from computers and work, and do something as simple (and in the world's view probably boring) as sitting in quiet solitude left with nothing but my thoughts.

Although I could go on, for those who have stuck with me this far in reading all this I'll give you a break now. Life is awesome and worth living. One last thought I have to share, and that is a reminder to be mindful of those less fortunate than us. There are many today without the means to provide a warm meal or even a warm shelter for themselves and their loved ones. Let's remember them, sincerely and deeply, in our prayers and actions. I pray for the Lord's love to warm the hearts of those who are underprivileged and struggling. Regardless of how much anyone has in comparison to others, with the Lord's love smiling upon us and warming our hearts we truly have everything worth anything.