We have had a great week of getting to know you's and working hard. Our big focus here in Owego right now is the Less Active members. We have been seeing them and trying to help them grow in their Testimonies and it has been so amazing to see how reading from the Book of Mormon and talking about it together, taking no more than 20-30 minutes out of their day, has really help and strengthened so many people. The Book of Mormon is amazing!
I have been thinking a lot this Christmas Season and have been reflecting on "the True Meaning of Christmas". I was blessed growing up knowing that Christmas isn't about the gifts we receive, it is about Christ's birth and about giving gifts to others as He would give to us. On my mission these last 6 month's, I have really come to understand Christ's Atonement and how we can't focus on that, without recognizing that the Birth is crucial to His death.
I have been thinking a lot this Christmas Season and have been reflecting on "the True Meaning of Christmas". I was blessed growing up knowing that Christmas isn't about the gifts we receive, it is about Christ's birth and about giving gifts to others as He would give to us. On my mission these last 6 month's, I have really come to understand Christ's Atonement and how we can't focus on that, without recognizing that the Birth is crucial to His death.
In the Christmas Devotional last week I loved how Sister Oscarson quoted E. T. Sullivan, who said: “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn't stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born. … And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.” Christ came into this world as a helpless baby, just as we all do. He then had to learn and grow, "line upon line, precept upon precept". He went through temptations and suffering, as we all will, and He overcame death so that we could all do likewise. Everything that Christ is is what we should be striving to become. His birth represents the Beginning, it represents humility & love, Joy & peace. Christ represents Life everlasting, and He represents all we can become as we turn our thought, actions, and hearts over to Him, not just at Christmastime, but all through the year. These gifts, and feelings of love for all mankind should be what we feel daily, it shouldn't be a "once a year event".
I have come to truly understand why He chose this path and why He has been with me though all the good, bad, and hard things I've gone through, and that reason is simply because He loves me. He wants to see me smile, He wants to be that Friend I can count on and turn to when I feel so lonely, or far from home. He has so much to offer each one of us, not only those of us who have chosen to be baptized and accept Him in our lives, but for those who don't know or understand it yet. He wants us to learn and grow and help our friends to see this joy too!
Recently I read this talk https://www.lds.org/
I Love this Gospel and I KNOW without a doubt in my mind that it is true! I know that Heavenly Father Loves us and that is why He send Jesus Christ to the Earth to Atone for our sins. I know this Mission was the best, hardest decision I have ever made and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
