Thanks-Giving, Attitude, Service and all the good stuff....

With my flight home to Utah less than 24 hours away, I could not be more excited. I miss my family so much, and am anxious to spend some quality time with them. I think this will be my last post before Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd make it a sentimental one. With the holiday season approaching, you can expect a lot of these from me. Already being a bit overly-emotional, I get even worse around the holidays, so bear with me.

Ashley and I had the opportunity this last weekend to spend the day at the Phoenix Rescue Mission with our ward, passing out food for Thanksgiving and spending time with the kids. The families we were able to help were SO grateful, and it really set the mood for my entire week. We have so much in our lives to be grateful for, and it is so important to realize that giving back to others and the community, really is, "the pure love of Christ". We should all be taking the time to notice the little acts of service we can be doing everyday. It takes a lot of work, but I definitely notice a difference in my day. Because of this, I have also been thinking about 'attitude' a lot lately and how much it affects my everyday life. I was lucky enough to run across my sweet sister-in-law, Amanda's sister, Natallee's blog (does that make sense??) and she had an awesome quote about attitude. Over the last couple of months, I have noticed that my attitude about a lot of things has changed for the better. I thank the Gospel being present in my life for most of it...the rest to Bikram yoga - which has made me unusually calm and stress-free (for those who know me as just plain, crazy). And for those of you that were worried...I can feel the bitter cynicism in me passing. So, with this I leave you...I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than apperance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in certain ways. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes." -Charles Swindoll


**The picture above is of a Arizona sunset, which I have really grown to love and appreciate. See...my attitute IS changing. I found something good about the core of the Earth that I live in.