Lately, with talk of Christmas and it's true meaning I've been reflecting a lot about past Christmas' and times that I have really felt what i believe is true christmas spirit. And I realized that I always feel best when i am doing service.
I have also been thinking about a time where our Sunday School class took "Christmas" to a less fortunate family in Calgary (thank you sister paxman for this experience).
We (Luke and I) decided to do something similar with the 14-16 year old Sunday School Class we teach, they were really excited about the idea too. We got some decorations for them to paint, and then were praying to know who we could give a Christmas tree too. Our prayers were answered when we heard a sister bear her testimony and mention that this was her first christmas without any of her family (she is a recent convert and from the phillipines). We decorated a little tree with the ornaments the class painted and each member wrote her a card with a special christmas message. We invited her into our class and presented the tree and cards to her. A few members of our class explained to her that she had a ward family who loved and cared for her, the joy that we could see in her eyes filled our hearts. She was so grateful, but I think i felt almost as happy and as her, and so grateful for the opportunity to forget myself and do something for someone else. Luke and I have made a goal to do something like this every year.
Today my friend Stephy sent me this picture that she somehow found:
it literally brought tears to my eyes for a couple of reasons:
a) this is from my time at BYU in Provo, and i miss it
b) this is from Adaptive Aquatics that i used to go volunteer with every friday, and it was one of those times i felt my best. Adaptive Aquatics was a program where we would play with mentally challenged children for a few hours every friday, and it was the perfect way to start every weekend.
This picture helped remind me that there are opportunities all year round and not only at christmas. How wonderful would it be to take advantage of ALL these opportunities and feel my best all year round???
5 comments:
:) :) :)
Makes me happy!!!!
Did you know that Filipio's start decorating for Christmas in September/October? I can't imagine how homesick she must have been feeling!
:) I bet you made that sister's year!
you guys are so great and so thoughtful!
That is such a great tradition to start early on!
Love you!
The TRUE Spirit of Christmas. Thanks!
The TRUE Spirit of Christmas. Thanks!
Me again. I realized you SHOULDN"T hit the back arrow...unless you think that what you wrote is so important that it has to be repeated!
Post a Comment