Day #22: Home is Where the Heart Is

Sister Jensen and I are having a wonderful Christmas season.  We have loved listening to Josh Groban's Christmas Album.

I have two songs on that album which I love.  The first I will talk about in this post.  The second will come in tomorrow's...  My feelings about the first song are tender, and I think they are best expressed by President Henry B. Eyring in this touching Christmas Story: 

"There was a song I heard first when I was a little boy—a song about Christmas and home. Those were days of war when many people were away from their homes and family—a dark time for those who feared that they might not be reunited with loved ones in this life. I remember my feelings for home and family when I walked by one house on the way to school at Christmastime and saw a little flag with a gold star on it hung in the window. It was the home of a girl I knew in school. Her brother, not much older than I, had been killed in the war. I knew his parents and felt some of what they did. On the way home after school, I would feel grateful anticipation for the glad welcome I knew awaited me.

When I turned on the radio in our living room during the Christmas season, I would hear words and music that still echo in my mind. A few lines of that song touched my heart with a yearning to be with family. I was living with my parents and my brothers in a happy home, so I knew somehow that the yearning I felt was for more than to be in a house or in the family life I then enjoyed. It was about some future place and life, even better than I knew or had yet imagined.

The line of the song that I remember best is...

'I’ll be home for Christmas 

 If only in my dreams.'

The house in which I decorated Christmas trees with my mother and father in those happy days of my childhood still stands, largely unchanged. A few years ago I went back and knocked on the door. Strangers answered. They allowed me to step into the rooms where the radio had been and where our family had gathered around the Christmas tree.



President Eyring's childhood home



I realized then that the desire of my heart was not about being in a house. It was about being with my family, and it was a desire to feel enveloped in the love and the Light of Christ, even more than our little family had felt in the home of my childhood.

We can with confidence set a goal to make this Christmas brighter than the last and each year that follows brighter still. The trials of mortality may increase in intensity, yet for us, darkness need not increase if we focus our eyes more singly on the light that streams down on us as we follow the Master. He will lead us and help us along the path that leads upward to the home for which we yearn.

I testify that because of Him, you may have an assurance that you can go home not only at Christmastime but also to live forever with a family whom you love and who love each other."

(Taken from an article in the December 2009 Liahona.)

A Blurp About Missionaries

Earlier today I had an opportunity to gather with over 140 missionaries for a special conference.  The Concluding speaker of today's meeting was Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Disciple and Apostle of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  He came with his wife, Katherine Christofferson to speak to us about our missionary service. 

Before the meeting began, I was reunited with some of my closest friends. 

We've been friends through the good times, and of course--The bad!  In the mission field we face many challenges. 

There are missionaries here who have lost family members.  Because our Missionary service requires us to give all our energy to the Lord, they are unable to fly home to attend the funeral service of their loved ones.  They mourn here for a short time and continue on. 

There are missionaries that I was able to shake hands with, who have suffered severe medical infirmities.  Because of their faith, however, they continue to work everyday for hours on end to bring the gospel to others.  The Atonement and Sacrifice of Christ helps each of us to press forward. 



Photo Courtesy of Kate Lifferth



Here I stood with a hundred and forty valiant missionaries, who put their lives on hold to serve our Heavenly Father.  We are His army.  We are all enlisted.  I love each of these missionaries.  They are my friends!  They are the only family I have out here!

Okay.... so maybe we're only 19-25 year old kids. 

Maybe we struggle a little bit. 

And maybe, Just maybe we're NOT perfect.

But the purpose that we serve IS perfect!

Some missionaries have never lived away from home before.  Some still battle feelings of homesickness.  Some fiercly fight depression among other difficulties.  For some of us, this is the furthest we've been away from home. 

But this is where we feel at home, serving our Father in Heaven, and His Son, Jesus Christ.