Email to Family and Friends
This week has just flown by! We have five baptisms coming up, 2 weddings, and we also found a family of five investigators which are really interested in the church, so that is another 5 baptisms that might be coming up. So everything is going very fine and dandy here in Thermopolis!!
We have helped the Ward here get really involved in the Christmas initiative as well. I love this area so much!
"Light the World"
This is a talk I gave in the most recent sacrament meeting in the Thermopolis Ward. And I would like to share it with all of you. This was a very emotional talk for me.
Some of my earliest memories are of pain and of anger. I was raised in a home of violence and abuse. My dad was a man who turned to frustration instead of the Lord.When I was five years old he was taken to prison, and my mother was left to take care of me and my six older siblings.
Those who know me best, know how much I love Christmas! I anticipate it's coming all year long. And I would like to share with you a Christmas memories that occurred shortly after my dad was taken.
It was Christmas morning and I was about the age of 6. Finances were very tight, and me being who I am, was ecstatic for this day. Yet, I did not know if there would be any presents for me. I remember us all bolting to the tree, to find large square presents, one for each of us. With excitement we torn them open! We found in them these huge, soft, warm, and thick blankets. And of course mine was the best, it was a blue blanket with a large Whinne the Poo in the middle.
I still have this blanket, I have have used it all my life. I used it all they way until I left for my mission. I love this blanket! Yet, I have never know where we got this blanket. I never knew tell about a year ago. These blankets were a donation to our family. As a home that went through domestic violence. I never had a blanket like that before.
That beautiful Christmas Day sits vividly in my mind. It has stayed with me my entire life and I will stay with me for all eternity. The reason for that, is because some one I don't know, and I don't know if I'll ever know who it was, shared the Christmas Spirit with me. President David O. McKay once said that the Christmas Spirit is the Christ Spirit. (1)
Jesus once said " I am the light of the world." (2), Christ once said "Ye are the light of the world." (3) This Christmas season may we light the world. This is what the Lord himself is asking of us, to share his light, through us in twenty five ways over twenty five days. These very simple acts of service will impact our brothers and sisters lives, as that random stranger did mine.
" As we have felt the pure love of Christ [this morning], we have felt more His love for others. Charity is the pure love of Christ. Whatever we feel now is only a beginning. The Lord has promised each of us a glorious future this way: 'That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until that perfect day.' (4)" (5)
"There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to re dedicate ourselves to the principle taught by Jesus the Christ. It is the time to love the Lord our God, with all our heart- and our neighbors as ourselves. It is well to remember that he who gives money gives much; he who gives time gives more; but he who gives himself gives all." (6)
May we light the world this Christmas season! I can promise you as a representative of Jesus Christ that if you truly apply this Christmas initiative in your homes, you, your wives, and your children will be blessed. I love each and everyone of you. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Elder Philip R. Bredsguard
917 Amoretti St Thermopolis, WY 82443
Notes
- See David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals (1953), 551
- John 8:12
- Matthew 5:14
- Doctrine & Covenants 50:24
- The Light and the Life of the World, President Henry B. Eyring, Christmas Devotional 2014
- Christmas is Love, President Thomas S. Monson, Christmas Devotional 2012
