HOPE

There is just something about President Uchtdorf that I love. I love hearing about his experiences as a pilot, and I love hearing about his childhood growing up during World War II in Germany. Yesterday our home teachers came and shared a message from this past General Conference. The talk that was chosen was President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk titled "The Infinite Power of Hope."

Many of you will remember the story he told about his mother's experience fleeing from Czechoslovakia to Germany with her small children on a refugee train. During a stop, she left her children on the train to go look for food. When she came back, the train was gone. As a mother, I can imagine the fear and panic that she must have felt. President Uchtdorf tells us that instead of giving up, his mother chose to replace fear with hope. Not only that, she turned that hope into action. She didn't just stand in one spot waiting for the train to appear, or be paralyzed with the fear that she may never see her children again and crawl into a corner. Instead, she "ran from track to track and from train to train" until she finally found her children.

What do you hope for? I hope for the basic stuff. I hope that my kids will be healthy and safe. That's my biggest hope. When I am going through a difficult time, I hope that things will work out in the end. Also, like many in this country, I hope for a stable economy. Although Brian has a great job and we have a roof over our heads, it's hard not to feel some anxiety about our future. President Uchtdorf's talk made me think about where we, as a country, place our hope.

Where do we place our hope? Do we place our hope in man? i.e. a new president, our kid's teachers, our neighbors, or others? It seems to me that many people have misplaced their hope. Webster's dictionary defines misplaced as 1. "put in the wrong place or position." 2. "Lost temporarily." We see a lot of people who have put their hope in the wrong place or who have lost hope altogether.

President Uchtdorf said, "Hope is not knowledge, but rather the abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promise to us. It is confidence that if we live according to God's laws and the words of His prophets now, we will receive desired blessings in the future.

...this hope is sure, unwavering, and active."

I learned a great lesson from President Uchtdorf's mother. She knew that she could place her hope in God. She also knew that she "could not sit and bemoan tragedy. She moved. She put her faith and hope into action."

So, in President Uchtdorf's closing words:

"Never give in.

Never surrender.
Never allow despair to overcome your spirit.
...The love of the Son of God pierces all darkness, softens all sorrow, and gladdens every heart."