A Firm Witness that "He is the Gift"

12/08/2014

Hello everyone, hope you are all excited because there are 17 days till Christmas... that’s like super awesome, even though I already got my Christmas package and opened it... ha ha.  Anyways, it was another week with some rain on and off.  It’s really difficult because the clothes don’t dry because it’s not sunny and it’s always so humid. But that’s why they gave fans in the houses I think.... not to cool off, to dry clothes ha ha.  

So this week for missionary work was pretty good.  We had Stake Conference and we were able to bring a little, old lady that’s progressing.  She’s getting really excited about the gospel, is reading and praying and yesterday was the first time she’s come to church with us.  We are really happy about that. We also went to visit another lady that we have been teaching and it turns out she read 120 pages of the Book of Mormon between appointments. So that’s always a good surprise.  Her husband however, isn’t so interested.  He listens, but he always works and can’t read at night when we come so he has to read Sunday, but he doesn’t, and he hasn’t come to church yet.  And, they aren’t married.. so that’s the big, sketchy part in the middle of all this. But Gladys, so she’s called, is getting excited too.  She’s already come to church once too.  So we are slowly working our way to a baptism.  

Sadly, I didn’t get to see the [First Presidency] Christmas devotional... that’s what happens when you live in the boonies... but I just wanted to share a few things. I’m sure you all know now about the program the church is using about “He is the Gift”.   We are using that as missionaries to try and find more people to teach about Jesus Christ during the Christmas season.  I was sitting there thinking the other day about Christ and about all he has done for us, and it’s really a lot.  Each and every one of us has been given a gift more important than anything else by a loving Heavenly Father.  We just have to receive it.  Christ’s birth brought to this world so many wonderful things and was really the most important event in history.  By this gift to the world from our Heavenly Father, we, as his sons and daughters, have the chance to be able to live with Him again.  Through Christ we have the opportunity to repent of our sins, to experience the joy of this process and be clean, and become the kind of people that God wants us to be and keep practicing it when we fail.  Through Christ we have the eternal gospel.  His teachings are our map to return to God.  He taught us the things we must do, the necessary steps to live happily and worthily.  Through Christ we have the hope of a resurrection.  We have the knowledge that death is not forever, that one day we can see our loved ones again.  All these wonderful things came through the birth of the Savior.  I’m so grateful for His birth and for this Christmas season. I hope we can all remember, after the havoc of Christmas morning, after all the wrapping paper has been strewn across the floor, that not one of the gifts that has been given equals the gift that God has given to each and everyone of us; His firstborn son, Jesus Christ.  

Love you all and hope you remember that.  I’m so very thankful for Christ in this season. I know He lives and I’m glad I get to be His representative here in Honduras.

Elder Ollis 

PS Elder Olaveson says hi. 

Note from Mom:  The video associated with the "He is the Gift" program Elder Ollis refers to is absolutely beautiful.  If you haven't watched it you can see it by clicking the link:  http://www.mormon.org/christmas.