A few more thoughts on Joy

As I've contemplated the lesson this week, I had one thing come strongly to my mind.

Being happy is a skill. I really want to help them see the steps to making the choice to be happy.

1. Constantly nourishing their relationship with Christ & living his gospel.
   
2. Being grateful for their blessings- being positive
3. Forgetting themselves in service

I am also going to use the idea of decorating the room for a party and showing them everyday is a party in this game we call life if we have a good attitude. I will be hanging up the following quotes from President Monson's "Finding Joy in The Journey" talk from the Oct. 2008 General Conference around the room.

I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and non-existent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.

“You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”

Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey, The Music Man (1957)

There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God.”

Thessalonians 5:18

Of course, there is no going back, but only forward. Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future.

We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us.

Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family. One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.

Our realization of what is most important in life goes hand in hand with gratitude for our blessings.

“Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend . . . when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach, in John Cook, comp., The Book of Positive Quotations, 2nd ed. (2007), 342

“Whatever hour God has blessed you with, take it with grateful hand, nor postpone your joys from year to year, so that in whatever place you have been, you may say that you have lived happily.”- Horace