ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

After the excitement of a couple of times with lots of youth coming for baptisms, we "hit the wall" last Saturday. In the enthusiasm of scheduling early morning stake excursions, an afternoon at the temple for a youth conference, and then leadership training sessions in the evening, we "ran faster than we had strength."

We used all the 100+ baptism suits for youth and most of the 140 towels, and the washers and dryers couldn't keep up with the load. At least once, we took still-damp, but warm, suits out of the dryers and gave them to young people! Gerhard and I worked almost 12 hours, since we had the early morning shift starting at 4:00 A.M. It was another day for almost 3,000 ordinances. When we left the washing was still piled high and we knew it would still be there whenever we went back.
Over that weekend, and into Monday morning when Sis. Oropeza and I finished up the laundry, I decided that either I could look at temple work as WORK and grudgingly count the hours , or I could focus on serving PEOPLE and enjoy with them the service they are doing for their family members.
This attitude change has made each day exciting as I look for ways to help PEOPLE and listen to them tell of their lives and how temple attendance BLESSES them. I hope that our experiences will benefit our readers as much as they have me, so I will share these experiences and testimonies.

Today I found a quote by a columnist that expresses my feelings.

... it's a little bland and prosaic to say that the joy we're to seek is a habit rather than a state of bliss or exultation, but it also makes a lot of sense. There's a lot about the daily grind of life that's just--hard. Work is often dull, children often misbehave, people often let each other down, health often fails. In short, our circumstances won't always be happy, yet we'll never stop being told to be of good cheer, to hope, to believe.
...one of the greatest lessons in hearing so many messages of optimism at this particular General Conference [Oct. 2008] was that our circumstances shouldn't have nearly as much to do with our joy as should our faith. Contrary to basic logic, it seems that joy isn't at all about finding yourself in pleasing conditions or happy circumstances; life can't always look happy from the outside...
http://mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/beth_palmer/?id=4783