WC - "Lift Up Your Hearts and Be Glad"

"We live in challenging times. Some people look at life with worry and concern while others look forward with cheerful optimism. How can we choose to be grateful and optimistic about the future? What is the relationship between optimism and faith, hope, and charity?"

Aimee Rudd -

None of us have a guarantee on how long we live on earth, but we do have the guarantee on the blessings we could receive on our obedience to gospel principles.

We can choose what type of attitude we're going to have that day. It is a choice we make!

Each problem or challenge gives us an opportunity to learn and grown! Are we going to get in the mind set to learn what we need to learn from them?

She told incredible stories of her family living with genetic diseases and their wonderful attitudes about their trials. She said it makes them who they are! 2 Tim 1:7

She has 3 daughters, 2 of which have cystic fibrosis. They have to be hooked up to machines every day for a certain amount of time to be able to breathe the rest of the day, among other limitations. The girls have such good attitudes about it all that the one daughter that doesn't have the disease wishes she did!!

We don't have control on what happens to us, we do have control on how we react to what happens to us!

Sonja Larsen

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain!"

Paul - We glory in tribulation knowing that tribulation worketh patience. Remember the experiences of the past, it builds faith and hope.

Told the story of her 15 year old daughter coming home one night and admitted to being pregnant. The trials that this family went through, The couple ended up getting married and later sealed int he temple. She talked about sitting in sacrament meeting for a missionary farewell of her grandson, and being poked by his father sitting next to her. I can't remember exactly what she said he said but it was something to the effect that none of them ever imagined that the teenage pregnancy 20 years before would end up here! It could have been much different had they had different attitudes in the beginning.

She also told a story of about a missionary diagnosed with leukemia while on his mission. He went home for about a year for treatment. He wanted so bad to finish his mission. The doctors finally said he was fine enough to go back as long as he had tests done few weeks. He went back for two more months then he had to go home again. He died 9 weeks later. He was a missionary right to the very end. He helped to convert one of the nurses caring for him!

She talked a lot about having a good attitude.

"If someone gives you a cactus, you don't have to sit on it!"