Count Your Blessings

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March 2008 New Era Magazine, pg. 20
“Behold your little ones” by Robert Barrett

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings; name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Count Your Blessings, Hymns, no. 241

With all the busyness that goes along with our daily lives, we sometimes forget to count our blessings, or we may think we don’t have any. We should remind ourselves that we have a loving Father in Heaven that knows us better than we know ourselves, that listens to our prayers and wants to bless us with all that He has.

President Eyring has given us the following advice:

"When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done."

I love his insight. I’m so glad that we have General conferences where we can receive inspired revelation that can guide us through dark and perilous times.

I need to listen to President Eyring’s counsel, because it’s so easy to forget to count our blessings.

Sister Shirley Thomas, former counselor in the Relief Society general presidency mentioned that her children had a first grade teacher that knew the importance of counting. This teacher bought dresses that had as many buttons as possible, and then asked the students to count them while she was taking roll. Sister Thomas said:

"Counting blessings doesn’t have much in common with counting buttons, but it does have the same function of requiring our focus. While we count, we concentrate our attention upon the encouraging, the positive, the happy. It gets our mind away from loneliness or pain."

How do you remind yourself to count your blessings?

As always, we welcome your comments.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Wednesday, 23 March, please click here.

Big Plans

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I thought about what message I wanted to send on today’s blog, and decided on finding quotes on obedience. Here they are:

"As parents and adult leaders of youth, we cannot expect our young people to take to heart the things the prophet says to them if we show a complacent attitude toward his counsel in our own lives." M. Russell Ballard – source here.

"At the moment, these four guides—prayer, obedience to God's commandments, daily scripture study, and a commitment to follow the living prophet—may seem like small and simple things. Let me remind you of the scripture found in Alma: 'Behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass' (Alma 37:6). When applied in our everyday lives, these four 'small and simple' guides from the book of Joshua will combine to provide the most powerful source of courage and strength there is: faith in our Heavenly Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ." Anne M. Dibb – source here.

"The gospel is so very simple when we understand it properly. It is always right, it is always good, it is always uplifting. Obedience to gospel principles brings forth joy and happiness. Disobedience has a day of reckoning and will only bring forth heartache, misery, strife, and unhappiness." L. Tom Perry – source here.

"Obedience opens the door to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. And the spiritual gifts and abilities activated by the power of the Holy Ghost enable us to avoid deception—and to see, to feel, to know, to understand, and to remember things as they really are." David A. Bednar – source here.

Don't forget to take advantage of our Free Download Friday, here.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Friday, 21 January, please click  here.

Getting Answers

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“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

Goals are sometimes difficult to meet. We need to make sure we set achievable goals to ourselves.

I know for a fact that I’ve set almost impossible goals to myself. The fact that they became possible doesn’t mean that we should always do so.

Elder Oaks has said:

“If we concentrate too intently on our obvious earthly methods or objectives, we can lose sight of our eternal goals, which the Apostle called “things … not seen.” If we do this, we can forget where we should be headed and in eternal terms go nowhere. We do not improve our position in eternity just by flying farther and faster in mortality, but only by moving knowledgeably in the right direction.” Source: here.  

We do not have the option of getting distracted, or of losing track of our goals. If we are spiritually minded, we will be focused enough on the things that are spiritual that we will be able to set eternal goals, goals that even when hard, will be achievable to us.

I love this entry. Elder Oaks is so direct, there’s no way to misinterpret what he’s saying:

“We must not confuse means and ends. The vehicle is not the destination. If we lose sight of our eternal goals, we might think that the most important thing is how fast we are moving and that any road will get us to our destination.” (Same)

I hope that we can focus our lives, set objectives, and not get distracted with the lesser matters. We only have this life to live.

“This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God”~Amulek (Alma 34:32)

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To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Wednesday, 19 January, please click here.

GOAL Is A 4-letter Word

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We're always making and breaking goals. How can we make sure we'll be able to achieve the goals we come up with at the beginning of the New Year, the beginning of a marriage, or, for that matter, any kind of new beginnings?

Cami Checketts writes about 'Setting Achievable Goals'. She tells us: "If you’re like me I’m on fire about my lengthy list of goals and then a couple of weeks into the year I realize something – my list is too long and I’m miserable. I’ve finally discovered that it doesn’t work for me to make too many goals at once."

On the other hand, Kasie West from Mormon Mommy Bloggers says it like it is, with the following statement: "Goal always has to be a four letter word, but it doesn't have to make you feel bad. Obviously goals are important."


If you ran out of ideas for Family Home Evening activities, here's one site that will bring lots of them right to you. Check out this young family's contribution on the Word of Wisdom. Genious!


To view a copy of Monday, 8 March's Neighborhood News, click here.