Gratitude

I am blessed with an amazing family heritage. My relatives and ancestors possess certain qualities that I admire and hope someday to obtain. The Joneses, for example, are characterized by their easy-going nature, their optimism and their ability to find joy in whatever circumstance life brings.

Last summer, on my Shoshone Lake adventure, I was able to observe my uncle exemplify these attributes as I spent time with him and my aunt. After canoeing over Lewis Lake, then through the channel that connected it with Shoshone Lake, we made it to our first campsite, complete with a small beach, a solar powered toilet and a private meadow in the backyard. We set up camp and had just gotten our stoves out to start cooking dinner when we began to feel water coming from above. I remember huddling close to my stove, trying to block the wind and rain. It was my first time cooking on a backpacking stove and it wasn't working so well. It wasn't an easy task to get our stoves working and our food cooked in the rain, but somehow we managed. When the rain finally did stop, my uncle, instead of focusing on how difficult the rain had made things, commented on how nice the rain felt, on how beautiful it made everything look. The next day, we did our best to dry our gear off, load it on the canoes and head off to our second campsite, located across the lake. At this new site, we hiked a small hill to set up camp, from which we could walk a short distance to the edge of a cliff to have an amazing view of the lake. I could tell my uncle really enjoyed this new spot. He commented, something to the effect of how lucky we were. That our first campsite was beautiful, and that although this new campsite was different, it was also a wonderful spot. That night there wasn't any rain and my uncle told us how grateful he was for the sun. "Funny," I thought, "just yesterday you told us how much you love the rain. Now you're grateful for the sun." Everything we encountered in our journey, he seemed to sincerely enjoy. I image that whatever the weather or circumstance, he would have found plenty of reasons to love it.

So how do we do it? How do we find joy in everything we encounter in life? In my institute class we were talking about how Satan got Eve to partake of the fruit. Eve was surrounded by good fruits that she could eat and there was only one that she was told not to eat. That's what Satan got her to focus on and that's when she fell. That's the way we fall as well; when we focus on what we can't have, don't have, or whatever we perceive to be going wrong in our lives. President Monson said, "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." So it takes a conscious effort to make any circumstance a good circumstance.

This last weekend I went on another family adventure where I noticed something potential hurdles in our lives. My dad, brother, aunt and uncle rode in kayaks while my mom and I paddled an inflatable kayak down Muddy Creek, a creek that runs through a canyon in the San Rafeal Swell area. The water level was about a foot lower than what we would have deemed perfect, which meant there were lots of rocks to avoid along the way. No one in the group escaped without hitting and getting stuck on rocks, but the duckie was a little harder to maneuver and with our lack of skill, my mom and I became rock magnets and for our boat seemed to find more than its fair share of rocks. Somewhere in the stretch of our run, I learned the best way to approach the river. First, keep a sharp eye out for signs of rocks. Many times they are hidden just under the water, but if you watch the water, you will see curlers on the ends of the waves, letting you know where the rocks are. Once you spot the rocks, you do your best to maneuver around them. Sometimes there's too many in the way, your reaction time wasn't quick enough or a number of other reasons and you end up hitting them anyways. If this happens, when you see that there is no way to avoid hitting the rocks, learn towards them, not away. If you lean away from the rock, you're more likely to fall out of the boat, so leaning towards it is the best bet to keeping you safe. In life we do our best to avoid sticky or tough situations. We have to fight for what we want to happen, but there will be times when no matter what we do, we find ourselves headed straight towards an obstacle. When we know we can't avoid it, it's time to lean towards it, embrace it, make it a sweetness in our lives. We do this by focus on the good it brings or can bring into our lives and then it becomes a blessing. In this life we are confronted with many obstacles that have the potential to either strengthen us or make us miserable. The difference is our attitude, how we approach the situation. Do we, like my uncle, look for the good in everything that we encounter; thus making life sweet. Or do we tend to focus on what we lack. Although it's not always easy, it takes practice and conscious effort, the choice is ultimately ours.