A Prophet's Challenge to Heal the World

A week before Thanksgiving, our prophet, Russell M. Nelson, challenged us to flood social media with our #Givethanks posts.  

Ken and I took that challenge and posted something we were grateful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.  I have copied and pasted our posts below.  They are in no particular order.

Ken:

#GiveThanks. I am grateful for a prophet of God living on the earth today and for his timely, wise revelation and counsel. For a couple of months now, Kay and I have been praying that Heavenly Father would help heal the anger and divisiveness in our current society. Now, as we peruse our Facebook newsfeed, we feel that we are seeing the healing we have been praying for. It is so very heartwarming to see all of your incredible posts regarding what you are thankful for. I am thankful for each of you and your goodness and your uplifting posts!

Kay:

I am grateful for a prophet of God. I invite you to listen to his message. #givethanks (I then posted the video of his message)

Kay:

#givethanks I am grateful that Ken and I had the opportunity to serve a mission together to Tsuruoka, Japan. Our mission has become the before and after event of our lives. It changed me. The moment I met these people, I felt complete love for them, and that feeling has never left. This picture was taken on our last Sunday there. Many people came that usually didn't come to church that day to say goodbye and we were overwhelmed with love from them and for them. If I had to sum up that year and a half in a year in a word, that word would be "love."

Kay:

#givethanks. Today I am thankful for my smart phone. When

Kenneth Hinton

and I were dating, we went on a date to see BYU’s computer. It was huge. It filled a big room. It was noisy. People scurried around it, gathering papers it spit out. Now, the phone I hold in my hand does way more than that huge computer could do. I can read my scriptures, listen to and read books, calendar, email, write Facebook posts

text, video chat, take and store pictures, music, store my lists, my thoughts, my dreams, oh, and call people! And a bunch of other stuff, most of which I need a teenager to show me how to do. Today I am grateful for my phone. (I couldn’t take a picture of it because it is my camera, so I googled a picture- another thing it can do!).

Kay:

My people

These are my people. I am so very grateful for my family. I love each one immensely. I am so thankful to know families are forever. #givethanks

Ken:

#givethanks. When I was a young man serving as a missionary amongst my brothers and sisters in the country of Japan, we frequently asked those that we met, whether on the street or at their front doors, what they were most thankful for. I remember being surprised at the consistency of one of their answers—good health. At my young age I took the incredible blessings of good health for granted. I was too naïve to understand what an incredible blessing good health is. Now that I am much older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I see the wisdom of their answer and I agree with that response 100%. I am very, very, very grateful for the relative good health that I and so many of my family and loved ones enjoy.

Kay:

For the first few years of our marriage, we didn’t own a clothes dryer. When we finally got one, I was so grateful, I vowed I would thank my Heavenly Father for it every day. I have not kept that vow, but I do remember and thank Him from time to time. When we were in Japan, we taught English classes. In November, the subject of a lesson was “gratitude.” We went around the circle, each of us naming something for which we are grateful. When it got to me, remembering my vow, I said, “My clothes dryer.” They all looked puzzled and one of them said, “What is that?” I was deeply humbled and felt oh, so grateful for something that I take for granted. I haven’t remembered that gratitude every day, but I do today. I am grateful for my clothes dryer. #givethanks

Ken:

#GiveThanks. I am grateful for a prophet of God living on the earth today and for his timely, wise revelation and counsel. For a couple of months now, Kay and I have been praying that Heavenly Father would help heal the anger and divisiveness in our current society. Now, as we peruse our Facebook newsfeed, we feel that we are seeing the healing we have been praying for. It is so very heartwarming to see all of your incredible posts regarding what you are thankful for. I am thankful for each of you and your goodness and your uplifting posts!

Kay:

#givethanks. I was blessed to inherit my mom’s piano. Playing it during these last months has brought me so much joy and comfort. I am grateful for music.

Ken:

#GiveThanks. I am thankful for good friends. I have been blessed with good friends, both male and female, for my entire life. You have influenced me for good and given me courage and inspiration to be more like our elder brother, Jesus Christ.

Because Kay and I understood the importance of good friends in our lives, we cast unnumbered prayers heavenward, pleading that God would bless our young daughters with the kind of good friends we have been blessed with. Those prayers have been answered for most of their lives.

I thank God every morning for the wonderful friends he has given me and my loved ones.

It seems to me that friends come in many varieties. Some friends are short term-entering our lives, enriching us, and then leaving us way too soon. Other friends bless our lives for longer periods, some for literally decades. The relationship developed with some friends is relatively shallow, but still a blessing. The relationship developed with others is so deep and dear that they become almost as a brother or sister. 

I cannot properly express in words the gratitude I hold in my heart for the many, many dear friends that have enriched my life. Thank you to each of you who have crossed my life’s path and have blessed me with your friendship. I treasure it more than I think you know.

Kay:

#givethanks I am grateful for our three beautiful daughters. They are kind, caring, and fun. They are wonderful wives and mothers (Kristen has six children, Shonna and Michelle each have four.) They love each other fiercely and would do anything for each other. They honor us and treat us like a king and queen. Because of the promise in the ten commandments, I tell them they had better expect to live very long lives as they truly honor us. I am very grateful for Kristen, Shonna, and Michelle.

Ken:

#GiveThanks. Another couple of God’s creations which brighten my days and inspire feelings of gladness and gratitude in me are the vibrant colors of autumn foliage, and the resplendent colors of sunrises and sunsets. Our Heavenly Father creates eye-popping works of art for us almost daily. However, I fear that I/we take them for granted too much, simply because they are given to us so frequently. I am grateful for God‘s love for each of us, and for his many beautiful creations. I am thankful for His hand in our daily lives. I do not own a nice camera. Nor am I a talented cameraman like a couple of my brothers and so many of you, my friends. Thus, these pictures were simply taken on my iPhone’s camera as I have gone on one of my daily walks. I am sorry that I was not able to capture the full vibrancy of God’s magnificent creations.

Ken:

#GiveThanks. I am forever grateful for God‘s wonderful creations. I have a particular affinity for his avian creations. He is able to take colors that I have always considered to be dull, common, and perhaps even boring, and put them on one of his avifauna creations, making a truly magnificent, gorgeous work of art. I am also very grateful to be blessed with a caring brother (Don) who shares my same interest, but has the skill-set to capture beautiful images of these creatures with his camera, and he shares them with me, enriching my life even further. These beautiful creatures are a daily reminder to me that we have a loving, caring, and watchful father in heaven.

Ken:

I started this week’s gratitude posts by expressing my gratitude for Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I feel it only fitting that I end my week’s postings of gratitude by once again expressing my gratitude for each of them, as well as our heavenly mother. God made himself known to me from an early age, answering my childhood prayers and speaking tenderly to my soul. I am thankful for the peace, guidance, and joy that my knowledge of Him & them brings to my daily life. As I have gained experience in this life, I have been blessed to come to know my Savior better and better. I pray that when I meet him face-to-face, I might be worthy to receive His loving, welcoming embrace.