Light the World, 2016

A cute, young mother named Mindi, from my church ward,  gave me permission to share this photo.  These hands all belong to her sweet little family, as they took to heart the council given by our church leaders to “Light the World-Follow the Example of Jesus Christ” this Christmas season- 25 ways and 25 days to serve.

They started with one simple candle.  They taught their children a powerful lesson on spreading the light as they lit one candle, followed by that candle lighting another, until all their candles were shining brightly.

This is what Mindi wrote about their experience:

We started out with all the light off in the house and made sure it was as dark as could be. My kids said the dark made them feel scared and worried. Then I lit one candle that I was holding. This gave us hope, a way to see, comfort. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World (John 8:12), but he has also asked us to be a light to others (Matthew 5:14, 16). Then I lit my daughters candle, and she lit her brother's candle, and he lit my husband's candle, and lastly our other daughter's candle (who is only three and was making me very nervous holding a candle! ). We can be a light to others by serving them. Our Christmas Advent this year will be doing something to light the world everyday December 1-25. See the full calendar on mormon.org. Let's #LIGHTtheWORLD together.

Aren’t they are making wonderful memories with their children?

I was feeling badly that we hadn’t planned out any creative or fun service activities to do with our family yet, and we haven’t been as involved in following the suggested service ideas as I would have liked, when my husband reminded me that we have been busy helping our daughter and her family move in to our basement, we’re striving to serve in our church callings (I was just put in the Young Women’s organization and have been scrambling to keep up), and we’ve been helping babysit grand children while their parents took care of a sick little girl.  

I guess service comes in all shapes and sizes.

I know I’ve sure appreciated the help of our children doing simple things like putting up our Christmas tree, raking our leaves, and doing our Christmas shopping!

This Christmas season has just begun and there are still plenty of opportunities to give Christ-like service.  We all need to help make this world a happier place to be.

We hope to get involved in many different ways.  Even small and simple things can make a huge difference.

The following pictures capture some of the Christmas happenings in our little neck of the woods.  I hope you are having some great memory-making moments wherever you are, and that you are enjoying doing a little service for someone near you.  I would love to hear about some of the ways you serve others.  Please share.

 

Beautiful Temple Square:

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“The Three Wisemen” at our church Christmas party:

We created my husband’s costume (he’s the one sitting) using an old bathrobe, a shower curtain, some foam insulation tubing, and some left over faux leopard material from a Halloween costume.  (15 minutes total time-if you don’t count giving the beard a good trim!)  He looked pretty convincing, wouldn’t you say?

 

The Christmas tree:

Thanks again, kids!  I love it.

If you would like to see a great video called, “Light the World”, click on the words below.  (I am the world’s worst at embedding a video!)

 

Light the World

 

Merry Christmas!

JoAnn