gratitude.

yesterday, i believe the Lord was trying to teach my husband and i a lesson. when mike got home from work, he was telling me about his morning run earlier that day. he said that as he was running, he had a overwhelming feeling of gratitude... he then asked me if i had ever had that overwhelming feeling. we went on and on at how blessed we feel to have all the things that we do. last night was also temple night (one of the things that we are extremely thankful for..especially with it only 10 minutes away!). as we were headed to the temple it was just like any other temple night. we found a awesome parking spot, got out of our car and went on our way. as we were walking to the temple we heard a frantic "sir... excuse me...excuse me.." the voice that we had heard was desperate. we both turn around to see a woman walking rapidly towards us. she was in hysterics. kind of hesitant, we walked towards her. she was crying... and i mean crying. she began to tell us that she's homeless and someone had just stole all her things. she had found a place to stay with a friend but the only problem was she needs to get there. we pull out my husbands wallet to find a $20 and handed her the money. she was so grateful. here was this woman who had absolutely nothing. she had to have the courage to ask someone for help. as we walked inside the temple, we were kind of shocked because the moments we had shared with this woman were intense. i don't mean like scary intense, just kind of that overwhelming feeling that we were talking about earlier that day. but that's not all... after the temple we had to run to walmart to grab some cereal (my forgetful mind forgot this on the grocery list). we went down the isle, it seemed like forever to pick one of the many options of cereals. we headed out to the parking lot where our car was. and guess what happened. a man was standing outside the store with his wife. he looked kind of depressed. he then proceeded to ask mike and i in desperation, "could i please earn some money from you, i promise i'll do anything my wife and i are on the streets tonight". welp, here we went again, into the store to get cash back to provide to another family in need. i think that's when satan was starting to work on me.. i started to think things like... wow, that was a lot of money to just give away. and all the excuses i usually think of when i see a homeless person on the street. you should have seen the look on this mans face. the face of hopelessness. this is when the overwhelming feeling came over me, we have so much. sometimes i say silly things like, "oh, we're just a poor married couple" or "when are we going to get a home?". we have much more than this. we have jobs, family, friends, the gospel, and more love than anyone could ever imagine. yeah, we have a tiny apartment and we don't have very much money. there are people out there who have much less. i'm so grateful that we can help others that may need our help. and i hope that we can continue to help others, to make our world a better place.

president monson said, "as we go about our daily lives, we discover countless oppurtunities to follow the example of the Savior. when our hearts are in tune with His teachings, we discover the unmistakeable nearness of his divine help. it is almost as though we are on the Lord's errand."