This year has flown by. Last year in Christmas, I was spending the day and evening with the Devicariis family and my wonderful companion Ashlie Gowans and our "other half", which was the other companionship in our ward, Sisters Boyd, Gatrell and Mathews. We were eating delicious food and truly celebrating Christmas. Christmas as a missionary is a special special thing.
Christmas has been celebrated on 25 December since around 354 AD, it's the day you celebrate Jesus Christ and His ministries here on earth. Truly, His mission began long before His mortal birth to Mary in a stable in Bethlehem, and it did not end at His death on the cruel cross of Calvary. As a missionary you get a glimpse of the Savior's character and mission in mortality because you are doing all you can to emulated Him and to follow His example of love and compassion. So His day is special.
I had no idea that the next Christmas, this Christmas, I would be living in Riverside, living with the most Christlike people I have really ever known. I hadn't known I would no longer be a missionary. I didn't know that I could be happy with being released early. But here I am, happy. In Riverside, no longer employed by Jesus Christ. My best friend is still the Spirit but just not to the extent as a missionary. And I'm happy. I guess the Big Guy knows what He's doing or something... Weird!
So yesterday we were thinking about that last year and preparing for the next.
As a missionay, you learn how to set manageable goals. So here are my goals for 2015.
• Magnify every calling
• Go surfing
• Grow spiritually
• Go on at least one date a month (hey. I'm in a singles ward. I figured it would be a goal to show that I'm trying. Right?!)
• Invite at least one person a month to come closer to Jesus Christ
• Help at least one person enter the waters of baptism in the year of 2015
• Take a language course
• Take piano lessons
• Begin quilting my mission quilt
• See Wicked live on stage
• Work in the Temple
This year is going to be a good one.
Today I am so grateful for the enabling power of Jesus Christ. His suffering in Gethsemane and death on Calvary and rising from the tomb not only gives me the choice to be saved from sin, but He also enables me to serve when I don't have the energy. He enables me to grow when Satan wants me to shrink. He loves me. He enables me.
With Him I am nothing, nobody. Yet He can see through that and knows me for who I can be. This night and every night, is about Him.
