 |
| Merry Christmas 2014 from Sister Johnson |
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, mine was just fantastic!
I don't know if I talked about it last year (is it weird to think that I
was a missionary last year too? it sure is for me!) but I've realized that
Christmas never really came last year. I put up some decorations, wrote some
Christmas letters, and listened to Christmas songs, but as I held my breath for
Christmas Day, nothing happened. It felt just like a normal day to me. I figured
that was just how Christmas was for a missionary, but then this year caught me
completely off guard.
I wasn't even looking for the spirit of Christmas, but on Christmas
morning, I found my heart was overfilled with love. I had opened the presents
that my parents had carefully wrapped and sent to me a couple of days ago, I was
listening to the music my dad had collected to send me months ago, I was wearing
the socks and neck-warmer that the members of Yokkaichi ward had given me, and I
just felt...love.
In the Tigger movie, there's a song that says;
"If you feel lost, and on your own,
And far from home,
You're never alone, you know.
Just think of your friends,
The ones who care,
They all will be waiting there,
And your heart will lead you home."
Sometimes, to be perfectly honest, I do feel that way; I do feel lost, on
my own, and far from home. But in that one hour in the morning, of opening
presents and just feeling the love that my family had sent with them, and I
remembered something that Thomas S. Monson said;
"The
spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out
upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than things. To
catch the real meaning of the spirit of Christmas, we need only drop the last
syllable and it becomes the Spirit of Christ."
As I sat wrapped in the warm clothing that I received and looked on my wall
at all the pictures of my friends and family that I taped up, I was filled with
the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of Christ. In other words, I was filled with
love.
I have learned that the spirit of Christ is the sweetest, and most
incredible of all loves. Sometimes, if I ask God, I can have a taste or glimpse
of this love.
It is a wondrous love.
May you feel the spirit of Christ at this beautiful time of year, as well
as my love that I send from Nagoya, Japan.
