Like the sun that rises every morning, or like that faithful old geyser that goes off every hour who's name I can never remember, Transfers are something you can always count on. Wherever you are as a missionary, whatever success you may be having, Transfers will come, filling the souls of any missionary with inexpressible feelings of suspense, curiosity, and a fear of the unknown. And once more, Transfers have again knocked on the door of the Arizona Scottsdale Mission.
So you may be asking yourself: "Well, has changed then?"
And the answer is:
Nothing!
That's right, Elder Fonnesbeck and I are staying together for yet another transfer!
Also,
this will be a quick email as I am short on time today. So I will
immediately address the title of this email. To save you from having to
scroll back up to the top of this page, I will remind you of the the
title. It is "The Joy of Making Others Cry".
Now let's break
this down. The reason why I said this is not because I enjoy seeing
other people sad. In fact that's not even the kind of crying I was
talking about. I'm talking about the kind of crying that happens when
people get so happy and emotional they just can't even control their
tear ducts. And my email was misleading also because it is not us who
"makes" people cry. In the context I'm referencing, it is as I said that
people experience powerful, happy, emotional feelings, that are most
often feelings that come from the Spirit of the Lord. And it isn't
always that people cry when feeling the Spirit. I want to make it clear
that everyone feels the Spirit differently. But crying does happen
sometimes.
And the reason I have been thinking of all this is
because the last couple weeks we have been sharing with people the new
"Light the World" video the Church made. And its a really awesome video.
Its about 17 minutes long, it's in a language called Aramaic, and it
tells the whole Nativity story in probably the most historically
accurate way I've ever seen. But most importantly, it's just a great
video that allows us to ponder on the birth of Jesus Christ and what our
Savior means to us. And I have seen it about 26 times now with all the
times I've shown it with people. And every time something sticks out to
me in the video or just in what someone said after the video. And that's
one of my favorite parts, when people share their thoughts after they
see the video. And many times they cry as they share their own personal
testimonies of Jesus Christ, which, to paraphrase Jeffrey R. Holland, is
"a more eloquent sermon than I could ever give." And that's what got me
thinking about crying. Because I've seen a lot of it lately.
But
before I sign off for the week, I would invite you all to watch the new
Light the World video, because they finally released it to the public.
It's called "the Christ Child" and you can find it on churchofjesuschrist.org, or lighttheworld.org, but most conveniently you can find it on YouTube. And just really think about it all and what it means to you.
I
know that Jesus Christ did come to earth. And He lived His life to show
us the way to live, and to experience the struggles and trials of life,
not just as a blanket thing for everyone, but He knows us now and He
knew us then when he atoned for our sins and shortcomings. And He felt
what we feel on a personal and individual level.
And I am so grateful for this.
#gratitude #tistheseasontobethankful #notgonnatotallyskipoverthanksgiving #neverusinghastagsagain #emailruined
Well I'll write again next week. Merry Christmas and a happy thanksgiving!
No comments:
Post a Comment