This is a wonderful time to be living here on earth. Our opportunities are limitless. While there are some things wrong in the world today, there are many things right, such as teachers who teach, ministers who minister, marriages that make it, parents who sacrifice, and friends who help. "We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues."
How long has it been since you looked into the eyes of your mother and, holding nothing back, spoke those welcome words, 'Mother, I truly love you'? How about Father, who daily toils to provide for you? Fathers appreciate hearing those same precious words from the lips of a child, 'I love you.'
If we do not have a deep foundation of faith and a solid testimony of truth, we may have difficulty withstanding the harsh storms and icy winds of adversity which inevitably come to each of us.
Family prayer is the greatest deterrent to sin, and hence the most beneficent provider of joy and happiness. The old saying is yet true: 'The family that prays together stays together.'
Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue.
From the Book of Mormon come other precious promises, including promises of peace, freedom, and blessings if we 'will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ' (Ether 2:12).
Our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.
We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness... We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us
When called to the Council of the Twelve, October 4, 1963, he said in the Salt Lake Tabernacle: I think of a little sister, a French-Canadian sister, whose life was changed by the missionaries as her spirit was touched. As she said good-by to me and my wife in Quebec, she said, "President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."
My dear sisters, do not pray for tasks equal to your abilities, but pray for abilities equal to your tasks. Then the performance of your tasks will be no miracle, but you will be the miracle.
The sweetest feeling in mortality is to realize that God, our Heavenly Father, knows each one of us and generously permits us to see and to share His divine power to save.