Merry Christmas!!!!

Hello my lovely friends and family!

 

I had no idea that I was going to be able to email today. I am glad that I get to though! Know that they are taking good care of us down here. Last night we had a fun huge play of the nativity that they put on with many of the missionaries playing the parts.  After that was over, they gave us some delicious white chocolate popcorn and we watched The Christmas Carol. It was really awesome! 

 

We had a great Christmas morning too...We had a gigantic Sacrament meeting with the whole MTC and guess who came to speak to us at it???....Elder Bednar!!! It was super fun especially because we were all making guesses who it would be last night and he was my guess and hope. He really is such an incredible and powerful speaker. The spirit testifies so strongly of everything that comes out of him. I wish I could share more with you about what he spoke about but with however many missionaries are on the computers right now, I can hardly get a sentence out before the computer freezes on me.  The General gist though...was talking about how we cannot just have a testimony of the things in the church. We are likely to fall away at some point in our lives if that is all we have. We need to be truly converted to the Lord and emulate the character of Christ.  This conversion and emulation comes by doing these 3 things.  We need to learn of the Character of Christ and the Doctrines of the Gospel (we need to have knowledge of them), then we need to apply them in our lives (but to do this, we can't be thinking about ourselves or be looking for ourselves, we have to be thinking about others), then we need to receive the knowledge or confirmation that what we are doing and the way we are living is exactly in line with what God wants us to be doing.

 

He talked about the need to emulate the character of Christ and how it is exactly that we can do that. Character refers to moral qualities that are consistently lived and strikingly displayed. With the Character of Christ, he always turned out (away from the natural man) when he was in the midst of his own suffering. The natural man has the tendency to turn in towards our own problems when we are in the midst of our own trials and tribulations.  Only by turning out towards others and God can we overcome the natural man and the tendency to turn in towards ourselves, away from God, and becoming selfish. It is really hard to get across all the things that I learned today from the Spirit through Elder Bednar...but hopefully you kind of get the gist of what I learned today.  

 

This is something that I am really going to try and emulate in my own life. I know that I am way too selfish most of the time and I want and need to be thinking entirely about others and not myself so hopefully as I learn more about Christ, I will be able to become that in my life...but the funny thing is...I won't even really know when it happens. He said that the time that we become that we won't realize it because we are continuing to turn out towards others and helping them in their pains and afflictions. Christmas has definitely been a spiritually enriching day so far and they have even more plans for us today that I am very much looking forward to. 

 

I love you all and I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas and take a little time to turn your thoughts to the Savior and to others. Think about what you might be able to do for someone else on this day to lift them and strengthen them. 

 

I love you so much!

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre

 

P.S. I am so excited that I will be joined by Nile Facer in the MTC this week! It will be so good to see such a familiar face! I wish I had had a familiar face when I got here. The first couple days were a really rough adjustment...but I am sure she will be amazing! Anyways...I love you all and Merry Christmas!!!