Happy Valentine’s Day!

So…I thought I’d be original and write about…wait for it - LOVE!…haha ; )  Okay…so not original at all - but I love the topic of love = )  Being so far away from many of the people I love has gotten me thinking about how grateful I am to have so many wonderful people in my life who I love and who love me.  And being in a new, unfamiliar place has also made me grateful for the people here who’ve welcomed me with open arms of love, and who I’ve fallen in love with.

I got to read the most amazing talk on love today (thanks to Kristy Keaton’s Facebook note) by Elder Wirthlin, titled “The Great Commandment.”  Pretty much, everyone should read the whole thing = )…but let me just share some of my favorite parts.  He talks about how the Pharisees had tried to trap Jesus by asking the seemingly impossible questions, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”  They had debated this question extensively and had identified more than 600 commandments.  Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Elder Wirthlin goes on to say, “Now, for us, the measure of our love is the measure of the greatness of our souls…Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the pathway of discipleship.  It comforts, counsels, cures, and consoles.  It leads us through valleys of darkness and through the veil of death.  In the end love leads us to the glory and grandeur of eternal life…Sometimes the greatest love is not found in the dramatic scenes that poets and writers immortalize.  Often, the greatest manifestations of love are the simple acts of kindness and caring we extend to those we meet along the path of life.

I got to experience this when I came home to the most incredible smells from the kitchen, and Mandy slaving away over the stove cooking my favorite food - jollof rice…as well as the most delectable shrimp and vegetable hash!  It was painful to have to leave when she had so thoughtfully prepared that meal, but I had already told Nana Yaw/Emmanuel (her brother) and Natasha that I’d baby-sit for them so that they could go out on a dinner date.  But oh my gosh…I got to move from love to love as I watched their RIDICULOUSLY ADORABLE kids, Dante (3) and Iris (1 ½), who showed me such love from the moment I walked in.  Iris is just SO precious…and kept calling me “Mama”…haha = )  But kids are so incredible…the way they can just love you instantly.  That’s what I want to be like - that’s what I want to do.

And that’s what we need to do if we want to return to live with our Heavenly Father.  Quoting the talk again, Elder Wirthlin says, “Without charity - or the pure love of Christ - whatever else we accomplish matters little.  With it, all else becomes vibrant and alive.”  One of my favorite quotes from his talk further reiterates the eternal nature of love.  “We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today.  Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever.  Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won’t, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation.  It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities.  The means of this refinement is our Christlike love.  There is no pain it cannot soften, no bitterness it cannot remove, no hatred it cannot alter.  The Greek playwright Sophocles wrote: ‘One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.’”

I know this is true.  Although I love a day that people give you chocolate (I was able to pass out the chocolate macadamia nuts that I brought to the teachers and staff for Valentine’s Day today…it was really fun = )…haha = )…I am even more grateful for a day that gets us thinking more about love.  There’s a video of me in fourth grade presenting a project, where I say, “And this (pointing to a panel on a box I had to create describing me) represents love because…because I think that without love you would die.”  It always embarrassed me that I said that, but now I’m starting to think that I may have been onto something there.  I don’t know if it’s true…but I do know that I’m glad that I don’t have to find out because I have all of you in my life!  Let’s all try to make sure that no one in our sphere ever goes unloved.

Jules...this is for you - sorry...I forgot to post a
picture of Obed, the boy who brought me the
flower, earlier...but I figure today's fitting = )

I heard giggling behind me...so swiveled around in my chair and
found these boys watching me on the computer...haha = )