ow hard I try or while even living in SALT LAKE CITY, they're still impossible to come by!......dang it! But I do have one amazing bishopric with a counselor that tried everything he could in order to get my friend and me into at least one session, however, his efforts did not quite work out so Caitlin and I decided to get up early Saturday, to get into the standby line, and to be positive toward the idea of getting in. Little did we know how long the line would be......even arriving there several hours before conference was to start, but luckily the line moved fast, taking us closer to the conference building, though we were taken to another tremendously long line that wrapped around the building. We waited in the second line for probably close to an hour, thinking to ourselves......that we're SO CLOSE but we probably won't get in. It wasn't until the session was to start in 5 minutes that our line started moving REAL fast and we actually made it inside past security. Caitlin and I were SO relieved and so started celebrating.......until we tried finding seats. While President Eyring started conducting the session, the two of us were racing everywhere, trying to find at least TWO seats anywhere we could but all the ushers kept telling us "section full"............COME ON! We're totally in the building but we can't even find anywhere to sit....so maybe we shouldn't have gotten too excited as early as we did. After a little while and walking around, Caitlin and I did find two seats.....next to each other in a great spot! THEN......we finally high fived each other while saying....."we did it, finally!"
General Conference was AMAZING! It is a completely different experience when you are physically there in person than watching it on television or listening to it on the radio. It was so beautiful and so magnificent while listening to the church leaders, hearing the choir perform and the organ playing. I absolutely loved every minute of it. It was so wonderful and I am so grateful for the opportunity for which I had to attend!
As for topics spoke in conference, that brings me to my next thought and that is of gratitude. President Thomas S. Monson gave a beautiful talk on the importance of gratitude and since then, many people have been discussing it and seems to have been on my mind a lot recently. But I love how he spoke of it, how he challenged us to always reflect the virtue of gratitude, "to express gratitude is gracious, to act on gratitude is noble, but to always live with gratitude is to touch heaven." (don't quote me exactly....those were the notes I took). But also, he stated "cultivate in your heart an attitude of gratitude." I think that when we do walk with gratitude in our hearts, we shine, it's easier for us to focus on the blessings and the tender mercies we've recieved, we're more charitable towards others, we're happier and more positive, we perform better throughout our days and basically, we have better days overall! After this talk I then thought of all the different things that I need to show more gratitude towards. I even started making a list that I should record in my journal and some of those are:
-my teachers and the overall program that I am in..... even though I have never had so much homework and busy work before (especially my cadaver lab....but I am trying to be grateful for that.......trying REALLY hard)
-the fact that I have free public transportation for being a student......even though I have to walk several blocks to the train station or wait up to 30 minutes for the bus. I should still show gratitude towards it and take more advantage of it!
-my roommates (they're so great at keeping the apartment clean and I should give them more credit!....and they're so fun to be around)
-Salt Lake City.......there's so much to do, so many places to visit........even though it will take me a lot longer to commute than it did in Rexburg and the drivers here are crazy!
-my car.........especially in the winter time cause I tend to complain about having to defrost my windows or of how I have to scrap snow off when I should really be grateful that I even have car windows to scrape in the first place when many people don't!
-of course my family and friends because they're all so supportive and so great
-my church leaders and they're teachings
-my classmates....they're so helpful and fun all at the same time!
-the gospel....I wouldn't be who I was today without it!
-and much, much more.........the list just keeps going!
But this is a list I am going to work on......in showing more gratitude towards and to always remember what President Monson said:
"Cultivate in your heart an attitude of gratitude"
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