ten years ago.

I will always be fascinated with 9/11.

There's just something so piercing about seeing those planes hit those buildings that will forever shake us all to the bitter core. So much death in just a few seconds and then the hour or so that followed. It still seems likes something out of a movie.

Ten years ago today I was 16 and in seminary at my dining room table with my church friends and my dad, who was the teacher. The phone rang at our house at 7 a.m. or so, during the lesson, and my dad told me to answer it quietly. It was my sister who was in Rexburg and she sounded really shaken and asked me, "What's going on in the world??" I told her, "As if i know!" So she told me to wake mom up. Five minutes later my mom yelled for my dad to come upstairs. I think he was bugged at first because of all the interruptions but came back five minutes later, looking sad, with the news of what was going on. He ended seminary early and we said one of billions of prayers that were said that day.

That day at school was chaos. I just remember watching tv all day long and not understanding at all what was going on. Watching the second plane hit the tower was out of this world. The news anchors all spoke about how this was an act of terrorism and that we were officially now at war. It was so surreal because war was something that never even crossed my mind before as a realistic option to witness for my life. We read in history books and hear the stories of our grandfathers who were in WW2 or Vietnam, but only as a thing of the past, never as a thing of the present.

It was the first time (and really the only time) I had witnessed for myself an act so purely evil that I will always be able to recall the feelings and sadness with just a thought or a picture from that day.

It was also the first time I had witnessed largely for myself actions so courageous and selfless that I hope only to emulate them as much as possible in my own life.

"One of the lessons of 9/11 is that evil is real,...and so is courage."

- President Bush

The one courageous story of 9/11 that will always be fascinating to me is that of United Flight 93; the victims who took over the plane and crashed it in a Pennsylvania field. I find it fascinating that these strangers saw themselves in an impossible situation and made the best of it by sacrificing themselves for the greater good. So many more lives would have been lost had they not taken charge. In college I took a Case Studies class and was assigned to study this story, the people on that flight, the phone messages they sent their loved one, and the possible theories and the facts of what happened on that plane. It makes me wonder as I read about these people if I could have done the same thing. Would I have been brave enough to do what they did? I don't know. But it is something that happened and will forever be remembered as an ultimate act of heroism, and an example of what it means to lay down your life for your friends.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man layeth down his life for his friends." - John 15:13

I'm not comparing these brave people to the Savior. But a part of Him is within each of us, and we each show His love in different ways. So on that clear Tuesday morning all the brave men and women who gave their lives showed His love the only way they knew how to in that moment: sacrifice.

Even though we may not have a personal connection to anyone present at the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, or on Flight 93, it is their experiences and acts of courage that have become personal to all of us. 9/11 will unwillingly be a constant memory for the duration of our lives. It is the ultimate grand reminder of how awesome life is, how quick it can be taken, how real the battle between good and evil remains, and how much we need to love and serve each other.

It is in this realization that the terrorists lose, and the sacrifices of the heroes of 9/11 prevails.

"If there is a spiritual lesson to be learned from our experience of that fateful day, it may be that we owe to God the same faithfulness that He gives us. We should strive for steadiness, and for a commitment to God that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. It should not require tragedy for us to remember Him, and we should not be compelled to humility before giving Him our faith and trust. We too should be with Him in every season.

It is constancy that God would have from us. Tragedies are not merely opportunities to give Him a fleeting thought, or for momentary insight to His plan for our happiness. Destruction allows us to rebuild our lives in the way He teaches us, and to become something different that we were. We can make Him the center of our thoughts and His Son, Jesus Christ, the pattern for our behavior. We may not only find faith in God in our sorrow. We may also become faithful to Him in times of calm."

- President Thomas S. Monson