In Relief Society this year, we have embraced the 9 virtues that President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote about in his book "Way to Be!" -  9 WAYS TO BE HAPPY AND MAKE SOMETHING OF YOUR LIFE as our theme for the year.  We rearranged them slightly, and for the month of November we chose "Be Grateful".  Although we traditionally have the official day of Thanksgiving toward the end of November, when families and friends gather to share time together, there is never an inappropriate time to be grateful.  In Mosiah 2:19 – 24, King Benjamin's wise council puts things into an eternal perspective:

19. And behold also, if I, whom ye call your king, who has spent his days in your service, and yet has been in the service of God, do merit any thanks from you, O how you ought to thank your heavenly King!

20. I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another –

21. I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another – I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

22. And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

23. And now, in the first place, he hath created you and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

24. And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you.  And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

That last verse really rings true.  Heavenly Father will bless us as we do what he commands us to – we can never feel like we have done enough.  And so the blessings keep coming and we keep being in His debt.  His purpose is that man – or woman – find joy in our mortal experience…is that not the desire of every righteous, loving parent?  We are told to pattern our lives after the life of the Savior, who patterned His after his Father's life.  Families really can be forever!  That is something that I can be forever grateful, and continually grateful for.