A Great Week Of The Year

I certainly love the Christmas week.  I love being able to sing the Christmas hymns, to learn of the Savior and to sing of his birth.  There are so many and we never sing them all in church before the season is over.  I guess that is why I choose them sometimes during the middle of the year when it is my turn for the song for FHE.

I had a really great training meeting with the ward mission leaders in the Centerville building.  They are all doing great and we shared ideas of working to improve the support we give to the full time missionaries.  Each ward in the south end of the stake has a set of Elders, and a set of sisters.  Except Middletown has two sets of sisters.  They are all doing so well.  It is another testimony to me seeing so many people learning of the restored truth, and embracing it as they honestly seek to know and pay the price to truly learn of our Father in Heaven as to its truth.  

I really liked Brother Mortensen's thoughts about the atonement today.  It painted well the meaning of the Christ child's birth and why we celebrate Christmas.

I also liked an email chain at work.  Someone started it with a joke of an engineering drawing of a Christmas scene, with the tree drawn with proper clearances, specifying the material properties etc.  But in the end one of the more opinionated older guys simply stated, he liked the effort but when he realized it was called a holiday tree he stopped.  Then he went off on the real meaning of Christmas and I thought that was just fantastic.l  Too often we let the Christmas get buried in the holiday and we lose the very reason we have hope in this world.  Even the covenants of the Temple have hope in the role of the Savior.

I hope you realize how much I know deep down of the great plan of happiness.  That we have the restored gospel with its covenants that help us have hope in eternal life as families sealed together forever.  It is a great comfort that grows each year as I gain more understanding of how much the plan means in the long run and how much the worldly does not matter in the long run.  And especially as I realize the value of family and the joy that comes from being together forever.

I hope you had a fantastic birthday.  We celebrated it with you in spirit.  We thought about you so much yesterday.  I know when I served I was a little sad on my birthday and on Christmas.  But as I have come to realize I had it all wrong.  It is a time you can find a joy that exceeds what you have known before.  That you can be happier because of the service you are giving to the Lord full time and finding peace in the teaching of the gospel to others who can find the joy in this life and hope in the life to come.  I think of the new temple film and how we learn from that about the great peace the plan brings.

We are excited to talk to you this week.  I know you are doing a great work.  Keep it up, and always work harder than you think you need to .  Give full proof of your ministry. (2 Tim)

I am so proud of you and so pleased in your choices.  You are an example to us all.

3 John 1:4

Dad