January 2, 2013

Hey guys!, I hope you guys had a great and happy New Years and that everything went how you hoped! I really enjoyed these last few weeks because, of course, I had the opportunity to celebrate new beginnings and the Birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a blessing are the gifts that the Lord gives us every day. Sometimes we go on through life and we forget these blessings and we forget to tell the Lord thank you. So we fall into pride and stop doing the things we are supposed to do. I can only imagine the sadness the Lord feels when his children act as if we deserve more than what we receive. The Lord is not obligated to give us what we need always. He wants our best efforts and wants us to learn. We should always thank the Lord and then ask him. So this year I gave the Christmas money you sent me to a sister in my ward. She has had some money problems and work problems. When I got home one day she looked way sad so I asked her what was wrong and we sat talked about the fact that she wasn’t gonna be able to buy gifts for her kids on Christmas because she didn’t have the money to do so. During that time after she told me, a bunch of stuff started to happen. Her washing machine broke, the window on her front door broke, her son was sent to the hospital with an asthma attack, etc. My companion and I started doing everything we could to help them. So when you guys sent me the money I thought after all these problems the least I can do to help her is buy give her a little bit of money so that she can enjoy Christmas with her kids. The day I went to the bank I was really bothered because I didn’t know what I was going to do so that I could give the money to her but without her finding out that it was from you guys. I had an idea to go buy an envelope and take it to a member and have them write a letter and write a note on the envelope for me so that she wouldn’t recognize my hand writing. Its funny because on that day it was our turn to eat with her and her family. An hour before it was time to go eat we swung by the house really fast to drop off the envelope with the money inside. So we went early and just walked by the house and when we walked by I dropped the envelope into the house and we left. When we came back to eat, she already had the card opened and everything. We went in and sat down and she was sitting there crying and so we asked her, trying not to smile or laugh, what happened what’s the card she had in her hand. She looked at me with a big grin on her face and said someone gave me the opportunity to give my kids a Christmas like I wanted to and said thank you whoever it was and winked at me. hahaha. We played it off really well and told her it wasn’t us but i don’t know if she still thinks it was me or what. She ended up buying gifts for her kids. On Christmas morning it made me very emotional to be able to see them open their gifts and to be able to watch this members face light up so much to see her kids open their gifts. Thank you guys for doing that, honestly it’s one of the greatest traditions we have as a family and I have really cherished both the opportunities I’ve had to be able to be part of it and see their faces. I love you guys and miss you guys and hope you have a great week. I hope that you guys work as hard as you can to complete your goals you set this New Year. Elder Lowder