Monday December 19, 2011

I sent Kadee an article, but I"m going to forward it to you too and let you post it on the blog.  President Belliston sent it out to the Mission this morning.  I'm happy that I'm able to stay also.  Things here are picking up.  We were able to bless the lives of a few people aside from Fonne.  Even as I type this letter my companion is sitting here teaching a lady the Restoration.  What a joy it is to be a missionary at this time of the season.  We get to help people learn the fullness of the savior at the time we celebrate his birth.  I love this work. I love my Advent Box.  I open a present every morning.  I like seeing the things you've sent me.  Hopefully I can use one or two of them to bless someone's life this season. Remembering the words to Rindercella wasn't the hard part.  Telling it in front of three Zones of Missionaries was.  Elder Dutson is in Essex now.  The other half of the first ward that I covered out here.  We dont have any sisters in our area or even our district. I think we have twelve companionships of Sisters in our mission.  Sister Anderson is out in West Virginia.  We went down to the Visitor's Center on Friday and we'll get to go do parking on the 26th and the 30th of this month so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures for you. This week is a great week for members world wide.  The saviors birth takes on new meaning when in missionary service.  May we each remember why he was born.  The life he lead.  The men he chose to lead his people.  Such is my prayer in the name of He who is our Savior.  Jesus Christ.  Amen. "Feed my sheep..." Elder Christofferson I suppose everyone remembers his or her first Christmas away from home. The reason might be missions or military service, student life or employment assignments but, whatever the reason, that first Christmas "away" is a poignant memory for all of us. To those who have been away from home at Christmas, or who may be away from home this year, I dedicate my own such remembrance. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland In my case it was my service as a missionary. For 19 years I had enjoyed Christmas surrounded by family and friends. I suppose in my youthful self-centeredness I had never considered spending it any other way. Then, as the Yule Season approached in 1960, I found myself half a world away from all that. I had been in England less than three months when, on the first of December, I was summoned to the mission office to meet Elder Eldon Smith, newly arrived from Champion, Alberta, Canada — my first junior companion. We were sent to open up the very conservative city of Guildford in the county of Surrey, an area that had never had Latter-day Saint missionaries and, to our knowledge, had only one member somewhere within its boundaries. We were young, inexperienced and a bit overwhelmed, but we were not fainthearted. We registered with the police, arranged for lodgings and, initially unable to locate our lone member of the Church, threw ourselves into the only thing we knew to do — knock on doors. We knocked on doors in the morning, we knocked on doors mid-day, we knocked on doors in the afternoon and we knocked on doors at night. We rode our bicycles through those streets in what must have been the rainiest British December in history — or so it seemed to us. We were wet in the morning, we were wet at mid-day, we were wet in the afternoon, and we were wet at night, but we kept knocking on doors. And we got in almost none of them. So it went until Christmas Eve, when people were even less inclined to hear a couple of missionaries "from the colonies." So weary but devoted, we retired to our one-room rental and had a Christmas devotional. We sang a Christmas hymn, then offered an invocation. We read from the scriptures and listened to a tape recording entitled "The True Story of Christmas." Then we sang another hymn of the season, said a closing prayer and went to bed. We were too tired to have visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. On Christmas morning we kept our morning study schedule then opened the two or three packages that had caught up with us due to our transfer. Then we went out to knock on doors. We knocked in the morning, we knocked at mid-day, we knocked in the afternoon, and we knocked at night. We didn't get in any of them. For such an uneventful Christmas — clearly the least festive of any I had ever had before or since — it says something that those special days in December of 1960 remain in my heart (after 50 years!) as one of the sweetest Christmases I have ever had. I think that is because for the first time in my life I found myself understanding Christmas rather than just enjoying it. I think for the first time in any truly significant way I was getting the message of Christ's birth and life, His mission and His message. And His sacrifice trying to do something for others. I should have made that connection at an earlier age but I hadn't, at least not strongly enough. But that Christmas in England — as a cold, wet, somewhat overwhelmed 19-year-old — I "got it." I can truly say that because of my mission, Christmas, like so many other aspects of the gospel, has meant more to me every year since that experience. On this Christmas I send my love to every missionary, every man or woman in the military, every student, every employee or traveler who won't "be home for Christmas," as the carol says. Keep your faith. Look for the good in your situation. Do something kind for someone. You will find that in spite of external circumstances, Christmas — like the kingdom of God — is "within you."