What is charity?

Last week my wife and I studied charity. We read that Charity is the pure love of Christ and never fails. (Moroni 7:46; 1 Corinthians 13:8) We read that charity is the greatest of all spiritual gifts, and leads people to Christ (Moroni 7:46; Ether 12:28) We also read that without charity, one cannot be saved in the kingdom of God (Ether 12:24; Moroni 10:21)

It seemed pretty clear to us that we need more charity in our lives. We read scriptures which said things like, charity vaunteth not herself.. etc. Ultimately I think charity means learning to love people in the way that God loves them. I would like to increase the amount of charity I have. So what do all hese scriptures mean on a practical level? Some people do not have a gift for applying the scriptures. Help me make a list of what charity looks like in practice!

Here are some ideas we came up with:
Charity...

1. means giving someone the benefit of the doubt
2. when someone does something against you, it means giving them time to repent before you try to correct them.
3. When that person does not repent, change, or show remorse - it means you recall all the times when God was patient with you while YOU changed.
4. It means where correction is needed (and it is your responsibility to do so) the wound you create by correction is no bigger than your ability to heal.
5. You avoid pointing out the failings/weaknesses of others
6. You can receive, as well as give gifts, comfortably.
7. You accept deserved (and undeserved) correction/criticism humbly.
8. You forgive all trespasses against you.
9. Charity avoids sarcasm (So sorry to The Daily Skinny readers...)

Those are some ideas that we thought of. If you have additional ideas that could be added to our list of what charity is... add a comment and let us know. Or if you would like to disagree with (or add to) something we already thought of, pass it on.