Gratitude and Letters

Prompted by a question from my mom...here is a memory/thought on a way gratitude has blessed my life.

Despite a paucity of memories from my childhood, I remember Brother Don Epperson, from back in the days in Sunny Mesa Ward. I remember that he would write kind letters to people, and that he always did so in red ink on his personalized stationary. I was so impressed by that and decided that letter-writing was a great way to show interest in and appreciation of others.

As I grew into a teen, that memory stuck with me. I did a lot of letter-writing to friends and cousins, and assorted others. I have written well over 200 such letters in the past decade. When I was the Laurel president in Aspen ward and we were planning to have a cabin overnighter in conjunction with visiting the open house of the Snowflake Temple, I set a personal goal to write a personalized letter to teach of the 25 girls and leaders in the YW organization to be delivered at a devotional during that trip. Each letter was individualized to each girl, outlined some of their individual strengths, offered thanks for their positive influence in my life and let them know that they were loved.

Later, when I was a Resident Assistant in the dorms at BYU, I decided to adopt this practice again. In the two years that I was an RA, I wrote 150 letters to the freshman girls I served. The hours spent writing those letters were almost sacred as I pondered on the strengths of each girl. The preceding weeks and months of anticipating this practice helped me to be attuned to the strengths each girl possessed, and their influence for good for me and others. It was there. And looking for it allowed me to have eyes to see it.

I loved the girls I served in Young Womens and in Kimball Hall at BYU. I saw, to a small degree, the good in them that the Lord sees and knows to be in each. It blessed my life to see them that way. I don't know to what extent any of those letters made a difference to anyone else. But they made a difference to me. Hopefully I was able to provide some support or encouragement that made a difference. And who knows? Maybe someone will carry on the tradition of expressing gratitude that I learned from Brother Epperson. And if someone did, I know expressing gratitude would bless their life, and it would likely bless the lives of others as well.