Letter from the Editor

Jul 2009 Issue

This issue of Desert Saints Magazine focuses on counsel from President Monson, given in the October 2008 General Conference. He spoke of the changes that inevitably happen in our lives. Some are slow and imperceptible, some come suddenly. Some are expected, while others turn our lives upside down.

He spoke of beloved friends, apostles and family members who have passed to the other side of the veil. He spoke of a U.S. airman shot down over North Vietnam, while his family never knew for two years if he was alive or dead. He spoke of examples from musicals and books and magazine articles about loved ones lost. And he nearly begged us to “find joy in the journey—now.”

He pleaded with us to cherish life, to have gratitude. He told us that this is a choice we all can choose to make. Quoting another author, he said, “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” (emphasis added).

In the months since he gave this counsel, his point should be even clearer. There are surely those among us who are now missing jobs, financial security, houses and more.
Does this mean we cannot have joy? We can still choose it.

As Elder Eyring put it, “the great test of life is to see whether we will hearken to and obey God’s commands in the midst of the storms of life. It is not to endure storms, but to choose the right while they rage. And the tragedy of life is to fail in that test and so fail to qualify to return in glory to our heavenly home” (“Start Early and Be Steady,” Ensign, Nov. 2005). I pray that we will.

All the best,