Hope is the flame that brightens the darkest nights

The beginning of a new year is a good time to remember that most darkness is temporary. No matter how bleak or dark things may seem at times, the long nights of winter gradually grow shorter, a new day eventually dawns, and with it comes a new beginning and new confidence. Hope is the flame that brightens the darkest nights. 

During the dark days of World War II, a Jewish inmate in a Nazi concentration camp found a way to rekindle hope. It was the first night of Hanukkah (which, in most parts of the world, falls at the darkest time of the year). On this night, Jews traditionally light the first candle in their Menorah. Not having any provisions for such a celebration, the prisoner saved a scrap of bread from his meager meal and dipped it in grease from his dinner dish. After saying the appropriate prayer, he lit his makeshift candle. 

His son said to him, "Father, that was food you burned. We have so little of it. Wouldn't we have been better off eating it?" The father replied, "My son, people can live for a week without food, but they cannot live for one day without hope." 

Hope is so much more than positive thinking. It's deeper than smiley faces and lofty words, although a sincere smile or an expression of faith can be a good start. But true hope is found deep in the hearts of those who love. It is expressed through meaningful work and worthwhile activity. It is manifested in service, sacrifice, and selflessness. It leads us to see ourselves—and others—as children of a loving Heavenly Father who, as the Psalmist said, can be to us a light that casts away fear.

Each new year, and each new day, can be filled with hope and possibility. When the night seems particularly dark, let us light a candle, even if only in our hearts, to the promise of hope.

"Within us, deep down in our heart…, resides a sense of robust hope and sweet expectation that can lift us out of life's fog to see clearly who we really are. We lift the fog every time we count our blessings, every time we are kind toward others, 

every time we seriously ponder life's true purposes." 

Lloyd D. Newell

He will ever be at our side. He will fight our battles. 

He is our hope; He is our salvation; He is the way. 

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

We build on great traditions of the past

On New Year's Day 1892, a ship of immigrants docked at Ellis Island in New York harbor. Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork, Ireland, was the first immigrant registered at America's new reception station. She and her two younger brothers, Anthony and Phillip, had sailed in steerage class for 12 days on the steamship Nevada to join their parents, who had arrived in the United States previously. 

Over the next 62 years, 12 million people poured into this country of promise through Ellis Island. It is estimated that nearly 40 percent of American citizens today can trace their ancestry to someone who stood in line at that much-heralded entry point to a new life. 

Ellis Island no longer registers new immigrants; its main building now houses an immigration museum. Visitors to the facility can search millions of arrival records to learn about their family history. But the real history lies behind the names, dates, and birthplaces, in the actual unfolding of peoples' lives—the markers that set their course, their hopes and expectations, their joys, sorrows, disappointments, and sheer determination. 

As we learn their stories, we are better prepared to push forward to a new era. In a profound way, history enlarges the experience of daily living. In the stories of people like young Annie Moore, we see ourselves. Pulitzer Prize–winning author David McCullough, a dear friend of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, said it this way: "History encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own brief time on earth and how valuable that is." 

The stories of those who went before us, whether on the front page or in the footnotes, form the bedrock our lives. Whatever we may accomplish today, we build on great traditions of the past.

Heidi S. Swinton

Auld Lang Syne

Mannheim Steamroller 

Auld Lang Syne - YouTube

Happy New Year!!!!!!

We have just enjoyed another season of rejoicing and commemorating the birth of the Savior and, for most of us, the opportunity of renewing family ties.  Almost all agree that December is a happy month, when we sing of "Peace on earth and good will toward men,'"but too many people leave this festive season and move into January with feelings of depression or discouragement.  To some, January is foreboding: the beginning of the winter doldrums. . . .

I think January ought to be a happy month of the year.  Of all people on the face of the earth, Latter-day Saints, with the perspective given them by the gospel, ought to be happy and optimistic. . . . January always brings a renewed hope for personal and family progress in the coming year.  It is the time of the year when people tend to set goals and make commitments resolutions, if you will, New Year's resolutions.  
Howard W. Hunter

Happy New Year!!! :D