Good morning, brothers and sisters. I would like to start by sharing a story with you. A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out the wash. "That laundry's not clean!" Lisa exclaimed. "Our neighbor doesn't know how to get clothes clean!" John looked on but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments. A few weeks later, Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor's yard. She said to her husband, "Look, John-she's finally learned how to watch correctly. I wonder how she did it." John replied, "Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You'll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!" President Monson said, "are we looking through a window which needs cleaning? Are we making judgments when we don't have all the facts? What do we see when we look at others? What judgments do we make about them? None of us are perfect. But yet we judge others. This is not showing charity, because charity is the pure love of Christ. It is easy to show charity to Christ but it is not easy to show charity to other people.
Mother Teresa, a Catholic Nun who worked among the poor In India most of her life, spoke this profound truth. "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." I think this is true because if you judge you don't get to see the good. President Monson said, I consider charity "the pure love of Christ" to be the opposite of criticism and judging.
Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It Is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others. Charity is showing acts of kindness to others. Charity is showing acts of kindness to others by simply smiling.
They don't have to be big to be considered charity. "A new command I give you: love one another As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
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