Strange though it may sound, I'm even grateful for the Holocaust

I'm not going to apologize for getting "preachy" in this blog - today, it's supposed to be. I'm putting up the talk I gave in church this morning on Gratitude. Mostly because, I liked it. I'm always glad when I get asked to speak in church - just another chance to publicly say that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church of God!

If you really knew me, you would know I’m doing my student teaching right now. One of the reasons I’ve gone into teaching is that (and if you really knew me you would know this) I have a lot to say to a listening audience. So teaching is great because you have literally a captive audience. They can’t leave! Still, even though they can’t leave, they don’t always choose to listen. So I found that one way to get 8th graders’ attention is to talk about real things – important, serious issues. Which works perfectly as we’re reading “The Diary of Anne Frank,” we can talk about the Holocaust. That shuts them up. It never fails to bring a kind of respectful silence into the room. It’s great.

Speaking of the Holocaust, I have a mission story for you. (And, um, that doesn’t mean what it sounds like, either.) So in Chile, no matter where you live, no matter how clean you were, you would at some point get fleas. Fleas especially love gringo blood, so I inevitably got fleas in every sector I worked in. As in, my arm looked like I had the measles, just covered with tiny red bites. We’d be teaching lessons and I’d be unconsciously scratching here, there, arms, legs. And sure, they have stuff you can wash your clothes in and spray on your bedding to make them die, but all you have to do was visit someone’s house, or just go outside and walk past a dog and you get more. It didn’t really bother me until I started training and my new companion had a terrible problem with fleas – pulgas, we call them. I seriously think she was allergic or something, especially at first. Or maybe she was just really gringa. But she had them everywhere.

So we were in La Ligua, the sector farthest away from our zone leaders, and we would often stay overnight with another companionship of sisters to be there for early-morning zone meetings and activities. One time we were getting ready for bed and my companion and another sister were bemoaning their plethora of flea bites. So I turned to my companion and told her this story:

I don’t know if any of you have read the book “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom, but she was a Christian woman who was taken with her sister Betsie to a concentration camp in WWII. She wasn’t Jewish, so I can’t really remember why she was put in there, but I guess if the Nazis hate you then, in you go. They went through exactly what you would expect: horrible conditions, near-starvation, daily backbreaking labor. One day they were marched to a new barracks. They had to sleep in a small bed shared with 9 women. When they got to bed that first night, she said:

"The deck above us was too close to let us sit up. We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw...Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

"'Fleas!' I cried. 'Betsie, the place is swarming with them! …How can we live in such a place!'

"'Show us. Show us how.' It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

"'Corrie!' she said excitedly. 'He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!'

"I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. 'It was in First Thessalonians,' I said. ...."Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.'"

"'That's it, Corrie! That's His answer. "Give thanks in all circumstances!" That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!' I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

"'Such as?' I said.

"'Such as being assigned here together,' she said. 'Such as what you're holding in your hands.' I looked down at the Bible.

"'Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.'

"'Yes,' said Betsie, 'Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!' She looked at me expectantly. 'Corrie!' she prodded.

"'Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds.'

"'Thank You,' Betsie went on serenely, 'for the fleas and for--'

"The fleas! This was too much. 'Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.'

"'Give thanks in all circumstances,' she quoted. It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.

"And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong."

Well, as it happened, the two sisters were packed so close that when they read the scriptures every night, there were many others who could listen in. And as they shared the teachings of Christ, they saw a significant change in the way the prisoners treated each other – with more kindness, more politeness, more friendliness. They sometimes wondered why they weren't yelled at or forced to give away their Bible, until one day there was a problem in the barracks and someone had to ask a supervisor to come settle it.

"But she wouldn't. She wouldn't step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?"

"Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: 'Because of the fleas! That's what the guard said, "That place is crawling with fleas!'"

"My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie's bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for."

Anyway. So I remembered reading this story before the mission, and I told it to my companion that night to remind us to be thankful for everything, even the fleas.

After I finished Hermana West just stared at me for a long second. Then she said, “Thank you… for showing me how it could be worse if we were in a concentration camp!” Then she flung over and pulled the covers over her head.

Then, as I was preparing this talk, I found an article where Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin quotes Robert Louis Stevenson, “who wrote, ‘The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.’” And I thought of that day with my companion and it made me smile.

I absolutely know it to be true that the more focused we are on the good things in life - the blessings we are given, everything that Heavenly Father continues to do for us - the happier we will be.

President Gordon B. Hinckley has said: “My plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we ‘accentuate the positive.’ I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort” (Standing for Something [2000], 101).

Being grateful is more than saying “thank yous” in your prayers. It’s living in a way that recognizes your complete dependence on our Heavenly Father. When I’m more grateful in life, I can more easily remember my Savior and what He suffered so that I can have second, third, and seventy-times-seven more chances. I’m so grateful for the Sacrament to remind me of how I promised to be clean when I was baptized, and how He promises to clean me one more time every time I mess up.

The Savior himself taught us to be grateful at all times in Luke 6: 32-33. “For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? …. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have yet? For sinners also do even the same.” Here He was teaching the higher law of not only loving people that love us back, but loving all people. I also think it applies to gratitude: If we’re only thankful for the good times, how much is our gratitude worth? We are asked to give thanks not just for our blessings, but for ALL things, good and bad. Even the fleas.

So I’m grateful for the hard times in my life, because those times are when I realize, yet again, that there’s no way I can possibly fall. I have too many support systems, in my friends, my family, the ward. I’m so indebted and thankful for the people in my life that bring me up.

Being grateful also helps me find the most important things in life to focus on. I absolutely loved President Thomas S. Monson’s talk in this past conference about finding joy in the journey. In it he said this great quote:

“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.”

We can have that same kind of experience when we open our eyes and appreciate all that we have. I’m immensely grateful to my Father in Heaven for all He’s given – especially when He gave His Son to pay for my sins. I know I can never repay that, but the more grateful I am, the more I can try, and the happier I will be along the way.

That’s the truth.