Peter spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday. He worked on his talk over a few days and finally let me see a copy late on Saturday night. I had a few very minor edits and asked that he practice out loud several times before he actually delivered his talk. I think he did well. Peter does not like public speaking, but he kept a good tempo, was articulate, and managed to look up from his paper a few times. Several people complimented him afterward. Today a friend told me he sounded more like a missionary talking than a youth.
In the last three weeks Phoebe, Sophie (in Primary last week, I wrote the whole talk since she was drowning in school and didn't think I needed to post it), and Peter have given talks at church. Cooper is waiting for for his invitation to speak, he expects it will be coming soon.
Here's a copy of Peter's talk:
Attitude of Gratitude
In Mosiah Chapter Two, we hear King Benjamin address his people. He discusses many important things throughout this chapter, but I want to focus on verses twenty and twenty-one, where he says: “I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—
I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” While King Benjamin may not have been specifically talking to us, we can still take some things away from those two verses. It is important to show gratitude to our Heavenly Father for many, many reasons. First, he created us and is the Father of our spirits. He gave us our Earth and our earthly bodies that allow us to stay in mortality. He gave us his Only Begotten Son, to suffer for our sins in Gethsemane, and die on the cross, so that we may all be resurrected and return to live with him. It is the least we can do to show our gratitude towards him.
In the October 2010 general conference, President Monson gave a talk titled “The Divine Gift of Gratitude” he said: Quote, “A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Often we feel grateful and intend to express our thanks but forget to do so or just don’t get around to it.” Close quote. An attitude of gratitude isn’t just being grateful, but also expressing that gratitude. An attitude of gratitude can be shown by following many of God’s commandments. We can show Him our gratitude for our earthly bodies by following the Word of Wisdom, to show him that we are truly thankful by taking the best care of ourselves and our bodies. We can repent of our sins whenever we have the chance, to show our gratitude for the Savior who suffered for those sins to give us that opportunity to repent.
Not only can an attitude of gratitude show Heavenly Father that we are thankful for all that he has done for us, but it can bless us in its own right. In Doctrine and Covenants Section Seventy-Eight, verse Nineteen, we read “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” Through an attitude of gratitude we can be blessed. In our modern world, there are many things that we may not want to be grateful for, or even many things we should be grateful for that we just take for granted. Having an attitude of gratitude can allow us to have a more optimistic view of our world, even in the most turbulent of times. According to an article I read from Harvard Health Publishing: Quote, “Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, being grateful also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.” Close quote. Showing gratitude for the good in our world can help us to have a stronger connection with those around us who may be a source of that good, and ultimately with our Heavenly Father, who has provided us with the world itself. According to the same article: “In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” While writing this talk, I remembered a movie I once saw called Pollyanna. In this movie, there is a young girl named Pollyanna who is incredibly optimistic. She holds onto this optimism by playing something she calls the “Glad Game”. When she is feeling sad or discouraged about something, she will try to think about all the reasons she has to be glad, or grateful, for that thing. This kind of view of life, to always try to be grateful for something is inspiring for me, especially in those moments when I feel there is nothing to be grateful for. In those hard moments, I try to think of something I can be grateful for, then see that things aren’t so bad, and begin to have a much better outlook on things. In the April 1992 General Conference, President Monson gave a talk called “An Attitude of Gratitude”. He talks about the story of the ten lepers, all of whom were healed by Jesus, while only one came back to thank him. He then says, quote, “Like the leprosy of yesteryear are the plagues of today. They linger; they debilitate; they destroy. They are to be found everywhere. Their pervasiveness knows no boundaries. We know them as selfishness, greed, indulgence, cruelty, and crime, to identify but a few. Surfeited with their poison, we tend to criticize, to complain, to blame, and, slowly but surely, to abandon the positives and adopt the negatives of life” Close quote. With an attitude of gratitude, we can do the reverse, and slowly but surely abandon the negative and adopt the positives of life. We can begin to push back those modern plagues, as we recognize and show gratitude for all the good around us. I’d like to bear my testimony that it is important to have an attitude of gratitude, not only to show our Heavenly Father that we are thankful for all that he has given us, but to also be closer to Him and those around us. I know that if we can cultivate an attitude of gratitude in ourselves, we can begin to have a much more positive outlook on the world, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
