Grateful or Bitter

We had a good weekend. Besides trying to get my house decorated and our Christmas lights up, we also had Stake Conference. It is always nice to have a change of pace and have Conference. About two weeks ago we got a call to meet with the Stake Presidency. They have called Rich to be on the High Council. It will be busy, but hopefully not as busy as the Bishopric. I hope he will do a good job and learn to love the members of the Stake like he loves the members of the Gilbert 6th Ward. Anyway, as we were going to the adult meeting of conference last night Rich mentioned to me how sad he gets sometimes if he starts thinking about our Angel Kamber. I expressed to him how hard it is for me because not only am I grieving for Kamber, but also for the sadness it has brought on Ethan, Jenn and their little girls. As we sat in the meeting listening to the talks they were all things we needed to hear. They were the usual food storage, get out of debt, and live within your means lectures. We know we need to do better in those areas. Then Elder Perry Webb gave one of the best talks I have ever heard. I grabbed a paper and started writing some of the things he said down. He first talked about the MYTH we have in the church. That is if we do everything right, stay morally clean, go on a mission, marry in the Temple, stay active in the church, we won't have any trials or challenges in our life. Then he went on to say that "we learn obedience through suffering. That through our trials we develop character and their are things that we can only learn from suffering through our trials." He then said "we have two choices when we have adversity, we can either "be filled with gratitude and become more sympathetic to others, or become bitter." He then told us about how his sister had been asked to give a talk on Gratitude a week after she had buried her third child. She had given birth to six children and three of them had passed away. He didn't go in to the details of how these children died, but you could tell how much he thought of his sister and what a great example she was of having gratitude in her adversity. When his talk was over I looked around and almost everyone around me were wiping tears away. He had really touched on a subject that lots of people were relating to. It made me realize that we are not alone in our suffering. Their are those around us everyday who need our help. When you go through a devastating loss it changes who you are. I hope in our case it will change us for the better, that we can forget our own pain and help those around us.