Happy New Year!

Here's the original ball that drops every year in Times Square in New York. Pretty cool. 

Michael and I had a really fun celebration with some friends from my internship, and others. We played Kinect, drank some Butterbeer (yay for Harry Potter non-alcoholic beverages), ate good party food, and rang in the New Year with silly (but authentically New York) 2012 sunglasses. And Michael and I, of course, shared a kiss or two. 

I love the New Year and what it symbolizes. I actually gave a talk in church today on the topic of Hope. How perfect of a topic for the New Year. It gave me time to think back on last year and what has changed, what was unexpected, what was accomplished, and to look forward to 2012 with a "perfect brightness of hope". 

I referenced to one of my all-time favorite messages from General Conference history. This particular talk was by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin in October of 2006, titled "Sunday Will Come". I'm going to share my favorite quote from it, as I used to have this printed out and stuck up on my wall in my bedroom as a reminder to keep my head up, and always remember that there is hope. It's long, but SO good.

"I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross... On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled. It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God. I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind. And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence."

FAVORITE PART
"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come."

Post about the Black Family's Hopes and Dreams/Resolutions for the New Year to come soon!