The Church

A package of balloons was the last thing I packed before I left on a school-sponsored tour of Russia. I reasoned that since the high school students I was escorting would be in Moscow on July 4, I should bring balloons in place of firecrackers.

Late in the afternoon on that grand American holiday, we made our way to a small park where we blew up our balloons and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” with gusto. Tanya, our 23-year-old Russian tour guide, looked on politely, holding a balloon while we relished our party.

After “Yankee Doodle Dandy” we created our fireworks. We jumped on, poked, and batted every balloon until it exploded. As the noise crescendoed, I encouraged Tanya. “Come on!” I shouted. “Pop your balloon!”

She looked stricken. “Oh no,” she responded immediately. “I love balloons, and I haven’t had one since I was a child. I want to save it.” With that she undid the knot, carefully let the air out, and slid this used balloon into her pocket.

The celebration ended; our trip ended. Some weeks later I stood in the midst of a national political convention on the night the presidential candidate was nominated. On cue, thousands of balloons fell. Almost instantly up to my waist in them, I watched hundreds more fall while my fellow delegates stomped, punched, and bludgeoned them into noisy acknowledgement of our political process.

I stood quietly holding one balloon, suddenly transported back to the Fourth of July in Moscow, Russia. Memories and emotions flooded back to me in that deluge of balloons. I saw again in my mind’s eye something I’d never imagined-an adult cautiously guarding one, valued balloon.

The celebration ended; the convention ended. As I returned home, I thought about balloons. In my entire life I’d never thought about them before. Taken for granted, balloons were tokens at birthdays and parties, something to add a splash of color and little else. But they were something to be grateful for too, I learned from Tanya.

Like so many small, insignificant things and events, balloons can be an occasion to thank the Lord for the blessings they represent. We are blessed to live in a time when such frivolities are so readily available and so inexpensive for most of us that we don’t give them more than a passing thought. What a luxury.

Alma admonished, “…when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God…” (Alma 37:37). Jacob counseled, “Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God;…give thanks unto his holy name by night….” (2 Nephi 9:52).

For clouds and colors, for food and family, for plumbing and possessions, for truth and travels, for vehicles and voting, for breath and something as simple as a balloon, we can be grateful at home and abroad, morning and night.