[thoughts on happiness]

How to use my freebies.

Some quotes from Mary Ellen Edmunds' BYU Women's Conference talk on April 29, 2004:

"I was told that Picabo Street, the great Olympic skier, wants to become a nurse and work in the ICU so she can answer the phone with “Picabo, ICU.” Isn’t it like a dose of good medicine when we laugh together? It feels unifying!"

"It’s true that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). And so righteousness never was misery. Adversity, deep water, and fiery trials for sure, but not misery. We can choose to cultivate either happiness or misery."

"Joy is a gift of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22). President Marion G. Romney said, “The key to happiness or joy is to get the Spirit and keep it” (CR, October 1961, 61). Heber C. Kimball said: “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit” (JD 4:222). Has that been your experience? As you have felt the Spirit, have you also felt joy? Joy brings the Spirit, and the Spirit brings joy."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said: “Ultimate hope and daily grumpiness are not reconcilable. It is ungraceful, unjustified, and unbecoming of us as committed Church members to be constantly grumpy or of woeful countenance” (Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997], 164).

Read the full talk here.