This month starts the He is the Gift Initiative. The church put out a whole new website Christmas.mormon.org and they changedmormon.org a little bit. If you have not watched the video yet I highly encourage you to. It is awesome. The church has given all those who order the ensign a he is the gift booklet. It has 9 pass along cards for the members to pass out to others. Do it. Be a missionary. Help others come unto christ by inviting them to watch the video then follow up as the Savior would and invite them to learn more by meeting with the missionaries. The video isn't made so that we can be entertained or think about the true meaning of Christmas for 2 and a half minutes plus however long we think about it after. It is a feel good video but it is more than that. It is a tool so that we share the gospel with others more easily. Showing the video to others just won't do it. Invite them to act. Invite them to learn more about Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. I say it is a feel good video because if they act on it they will gain lasting peace for eternity not a couple minutes.
We finally met with Carolyn our investigator. She is 79 I believe. She is a talker. She read through the first book of Nephi and she knows that it is the word of God and she thinks it is the "answer" to the bible. I completely agree with her. She loves how it talks about the gathering of Israel which is the restoration of the gospel. Hopefully we can help her understand that if the book of Mormon is the word of the God that Jesus Christ did restore his gospel through Joseph Smith his servant and prophet. Once she understands that I know that she will accept a baptismal date.
On Friday I decided we would go visit our former investigator who dropped us not too long ago. People like her who know it is all true can only drop us on the phone. I knew that if we just showed up she would talk to us. I was right. She acted like she didn't drop us and was all friendly and fed us dinner and everything. The Whithams who live close by and have a daughter the same age as our investigators daughter has been trying to reach out to her even this last month when we weren't in contact with her. Andreaana told us about how her daughter was having a rough day and felt bad like she didn't have any self worth type of thing and then that day the Whithams daughter came over with cookies for her. I had no idea she was still trying to reach out to here but It was such a blessing to hear about that. It was a small miracle but I loved it. If she hadn't been in tune with the spirit and being worthy of it then I don't think her timing would be so perfect. She wasn't at church this Sunday so I didn't get to tell her about it. We don't always see the difference we make. I bore my testimony yesterday and told the story and I was on the edge of crying. Well I did. I dislike crying while speaking. It makes me feel like a girl. Oh well. Testimony meeting was amazing. Half the people after me were crying. I must've brought the spirit in even more. It is amazing how the spirit moves people and how powerful of an effect it has.
Backing up to Satuday we were planning to do a lot of tracting because we didn't have any set lessons and tracting the whole day in the winter isn't not nearly as effective and productive as it is in the summer but our ward mission leader texted us and asked us to do some service at his house. It was perfect. It was my first time there. He lives in the other elders area and he lives a good distance away but he picked us up. We got a ton of stuff done. We put insulation in his attic and I was the lucky one to go up and hold the blower. Then we went down to the basement and I crawled into a tiny space and put more insulation in there. It was pretty gross. We did some other stuff then he feed us lunch. He has three little kids who love to do work and help. They are so cute. Being a missionary I think more about having a family than ever before. It is weird though because I should keep my mind on being a missionary. We then went straight to the ward Christmas party. We were late so we didn't change out of our service clothes which I didn't mind. They had an ugly christmas sweater contest and I couldn't find any cheap ones earlier this week so I didn't have one but Sister Jingles gave me hers to wear for the contest. The moms in the ward loved me. Apparently I looked great. Haley in our ward sent Christina a picture on facebook and I know there is a picture of me on the ward facebook page.
The party was awesome. I got some candy canes too. Life just gets better and better. We had choir yesterday after church and every time it reminds me of the stake nativity choir back home. We perform in two weeks.
We came back to the church building for the First Presidency's christmas devotional last night. My favorite part was President Uchtdorfs talk and how Christ had to go through this mortal life and how if he did so he could perform the Atonement then we need to go through life and mortal struggles too. This time of year is the best as a missionary. It helps to do missionary work when others are constantly thinking of Christ.
Elder Turner
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