09/11/01 Gratitude

At 9:59 this morning, the sirens in our town sounded as a tribute to those who lost their lives 10 years ago today. My mind went back to what I was doing this day, 10 years ago. There are only a handful of events in my life, that I can remember exactly where I was at that exact minute. This time, I was on my mission in San Francisco. My companion and I were at our apartment in Navato getting ready to start the day when our mission president, President Blood called. He informed us about the events in NY and the Pentagon. We couldn't believe it. All we wanted to do was watch the news and hear more about it. But, because we were missionaries, we didn't have TV's, nor were we allowed to watch TV. Our job for 18 months was just to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We didn't have jobs, or friends outside of our companionships or roommates, we didn't have to worry about ourselves really at all for a year and a half. We wrote letters once a week to keep in touch with our families and friends, and pretty much that was our only contact with the "outside world". It was really nice, except at that moment. I wanted to call all my family on the east coast and make sure they were ok, I wanted to call my brother who was just there with his wife and little girl. There wasn't much we could do. We sat in silence for a while, taking it all in and wondering what to do next.

We weren't allowed to go anywhere for a couple hours because there were rumors that the Golden Gate Bridge was next. Later that night we went out tracting, which is just going door to door and talking to people. Usually, you would knock on about 20 doors or more, before you get a friendly face, and maybe about 30 doors before you get someone that wanted to hear your message. This night was different. Everyone had the news blarring, and almost everyone came to the door and wanted to know what our message of peace was. Our prophet at the time, President Hinckley, who has sense passed away, told us all to have faith. Faith in the Lord, faith that God lives, that He loves us, and that He knows us. Faith that our nation would rise above. So, as we went door to door that night, not really knowing fully what was going, we just told people that God lives and loves us. It was a unique time to be able to share my testimony with other. One that I will never forget.

Today, 10 years later, I feel gratitude for those that gave their lives and sorrow for those innocent lives that were lost. I feel gratitude for the country that we live in and for the freedoms that we enjoy everyday. I'm grateful now to have 4 beautiful children to teach these truths to.