We have had a wonderful Sabbath day thus far. We attended our weekly sacrament meeting, and we are grateful for the kind and careful steps our bishopric is making during the COVID-19 pandemic to make the chapel a safe haven where all may come to worship together without fear of spreading the virus that is altering nearly everything we do these days. We are thankful for two speakers in our meeting today who offered comments and a review of Elder Matthew S. Holland's talk at the recent October 2020 General Conference. He entitled it "The Exquisite Gift of the Son."
We are thankful for the young men of the Aaronic Priesthood in our ward who administer the emblems of the Lord's agonizing atoning sacrifice for each of us. The bread and the water, simple symbols that are universal reminders of the Savior's body and His blood, allow us to bind our souls to Him, to remember Him, to covenant to keep His commandments, and to always have His spirit to attend us.
We were thankful for a season this summer to have authorization to administer the sacrament in our home, and we enjoyed having the Pahnkes, our brother and sister from California, joining us in our home sacrament service. But now we have thankfully been able to return to the ward building to be served by our young men, who are masked, wear protective latex gloves, and making everyone feel loved as they serve us. There is power in worshipping at home, but there is also power in gathering at the ward building for the fellowship of our ward members from a safe distance.
I give thanks that we live in a day when we can worship freely in the land of America, where religious freedom abounds. Except for those freedoms we enjoy here in America, the gospel never could have flourished and we would be unable to go into foreign lands and teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the blessing of the Constitution of the United States and for the Bill of Rights that offers the privilege of worshipping who, where and what we choose. I give thanks for the Constitutional right to choose.
I am thankful for my family members, most of whom are feeling somewhat disenfranchised this upcoming holiday season because of the counsel to avoid gathering too many people. That suggestion, of course, puts a damper on the traditional Thanksgiving dinner plans for everyone. I am thankful that we can still be offering our gratitude even with reduced numbers around the table. We love getting together with our family whenever we can, but this year we give thanks that we are so anxious to be together even though the restrictions make it more difficult. Count it a blessing, as we do, that our families desire to be together. How sad would it be if they were indifferent and didn't care to be together? I am grateful they love one another.
Traditionally, one of our favorite holiday events has been getting together to make our gingerbread houses the day after Thanksgiving. We are still doing it, but gathering in much smaller groups to remain safer. We are grateful for Grandma Patsy, who makes the gingerbread houses - this year around 40 - for all who want to come and put them together. There is definitely more candy involved than Halloween, and how grateful we all are for the continuation of the sugar fest into November and December.
I express my thanks for the peace and tranquility of Pine Valley. The long dry summer and autumn is finally transitioning into winter. The snow is a welcome respite from the heat and the drought that often dominates the desert climate where we live. We are richly blessed with all four seasons. The water we drink in summer comes largely from the skies above in the form of the winter snow. I am grateful for the "greatest snow on Earth."
I give thanks for electricity, for propane, for a boiler, for a water pump that pumps fresh spring water into our home on tap. I am grateful for warm showers and baths, for firewood to burn in our free-standing stove in one section of the house, and for warm baseboards fed by the boiler that heat the whole house. These creature comforts, though we all seem to take them for granted, are better than the castles of old Europe that lacked even the barest of these necessities in years gone by. I am grateful that I live better than the crown heads of Europe used to live.
I am grateful for transportation to get me wherever I wish to travel when and if it is possible. Cars and trucks that work, airplanes that fly, trains and buses are readily available to us. We aren't that many years removed from horses and buggies.
I am grateful today for Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk in the October 2020 General Conference. We reviewed it in our Zoom priesthood meeting this morning. It is entitled "Waiting on the Lord," and Elder Holland emphasizes that we are not always privy to the timetable of the Lord. We often petition the Lord for blessings, and sometimes in the cases of chronic illness or physical pain those pleas seem to go unanswered for many years. I give thanks for the assurances that our prayers are always answered.
"I offer you my apostolic promise that [your prayers] are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them. . .
"He administers that calendar to every one of us individually. For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda (see John 5:2-9), someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land. (See Numbers 32:13; Deuteronomy 2:7; Joshua 5:6)."
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