April Goal

I wanted to post the April goal a bit early so that you will all be prepared to have the full month to complete the goal. For the past few months I have been thinking of different goals that could benefit us. As I read the March Ensign I felt that this goal would be the best out of all the other possibilities I had.

First of all, I would like you to read 2 articles from the March Ensign. They are, "Two Words That Can Change Lives" (p. 42) and "The Value of Experiencing and Expressing Gratitude" (pp. 44-49). While I read these articles it spoke of the many health benefits of expressing thanks. There are a few key points that I want to emphasize.
1. The expressions and feelings of gratitude have a wonderful cleansing or healing nature.
2. Practicing gratitude can also lead to increases in optimism, vitality, happiness, a sense of
well-being, and a greater satisfaction with life.
3. Gratitude can be defined as a coping response to challenging or difficult circumstances.

At the end of the second article there is a section called 'What can we do to Cultivate Gratitude in Ourselves and Others?' For your goal I want you to 1. Keep a DAILY gratitude journal for the entire month AND 2. Make a gratitude visit OR write someone a gratitude letter and send it to them. These are the first 2 things mentioned in this section, but there are also 7 other options and I would ALSO like you to pick 1 more and work on that throughout the month.

This is something that each one of us can do (husbands included) and greatly benefit from. I also encourage you to share this with your children and maybe have them write down things they are grateful for too.

I feel this is a good goal for our family because of the many spiritual, physical, and emotional benefits that can come about by being more grateful for all we have instead of focusing on what we don't have.

p.s. I suggest buying a new notebook of some sorts for your gratitude journal so that you can look through it when times are hard in the future.