Love over Anger

I must bring up one other talk from General Conference today. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talk on laughter. He asked if anyone had ever run into an angry driver where you have not only offended him, but his mother, his dog and all his ancestry from the dawn of time. Indeed I have!!

I loved the reminder that love is the answer, not anger. And we had an opportunity today to test this principle as we drove down our street and about 10 rowdy boys wouldn't move, shouted the F word and made weird noises at us. Joe was upset and wanted to talk to their parents. I wanted to talk to the kids. The boys were huddled and as we walked out as a family I asked the boy, "Have you ever been hit by a car?" No. "Well do you want to be hit by a car? Why are you not moving when you see a car?" I dunno. I told him I was a teacher and that I knew a good boy when I saw one. He warmed up to me and we talked about using bad words. The others boys randomly left and 3 stood to listen. One was 6 years old and I asked him if he thought it was OK to teach the little boy such foul words. I asked, "Would that make our Heavenly Father proud of you?" Who's that the boy asked. "Do you believe in God?" And before he could answer the little 6 year old said, "I know there is a God and I wish I could fly to Him and be with him."

We could have talked to the parents. But in my experience the parents are always worse to deal with and who knows if they'd beat the kids after. One boy had bandages all over from a pitt bull attack. I don't know if those boys will give second thought to what we talked about, but at least they heard something positive, "I know a good boy when I see one."

Why do parents ever put down their children? "He's lazy. He's a lost cause." Again, the laughter and the happiness over the anger. We will have hard times in life, but God will give us strength.

Elder Wirthlin was talking about a blind date his daughter was going on that he didn't necessarily approve of. A man twice her age knocked on the door, a man he thought he had seen with young children before. She got into his car, but 10 minutes later she was back home. What had happened? Turned out he was married and had 3 kids and was there to pick up the babysitter, her sister!! If we can just find the humor, little things will stay little and we can have peace.