Gifts

Dear Family and Loved Ones,

     I think I am in denial that it is already December and nearly the end of 2012. In our Relief Society class today it finally hit me the year is nearly over since we just have a couple of lessons left to finish out our lesson manual. This year has gone very quickly!

Tuesday Ted opened his e-mail to find that we have 35 missionaries who will arrive in March! February is a big transfer as well with 16 missionaries arriving, six are sisters. The biggest group of missionaries we have ever had arrive was 24 so we are thinking of ways we can bring that many missionaries into the mission and have everything go smoothly. We are coming up with some ideas and we will be ready to receive these great missionaries who have been assigned to us by a Prophet of God.

     We had a busy week with our Zone Conferences which were held Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They went really well and it was so good to gather our missionaries. The training was given by our mission nurse, our senior office Elder over cars, the zone leaders, the Assistants and Ted. Our mission nurse is outstanding! She gives the most amazing power point presentations, she loves our missionaries and they love her! Her presentation was on germs and I think she had us all thinking a lot more about being more careful with our food, apartment cleanliness and hygiene. Our senior Elder talked about taking care of the “Lord’s vehicle”. He had some great video clips showing a cute and feisty Grandma paying her meager tithing. When the Grandma sees the Elders driving their mission car recklessly she turns them in to the mission president and tells them later as she feeds them dinner, “So I heard you lost your driving privileges”. The missionaries thought the videos were a lot of fun. It was a good way to make a point about taking good care of their cars, which are purchased with sacred tithing funds, without pointing any fingers. The rest of the trainings were really great too – they focused on teaching fundamentals.

     Saturday Ted worked on transfers most of the day. He says they are coming along. This transfer is short (five weeks instead of six) because of Christmas, Church Travel doesn’t want any missionaries stranded in airports so they don’t have them travel too close to the Holidays. Our departures and arrivals are December 18th. Our next transfer will have an extra week in it to make up the difference.

     Every once in awhile there is a baptism that just seems to fall in the lap of our missionaries. A couple of weeks ago our missionaries were sitting next to a single mom and her eight year old son. The missionaries had white washed (both were new in the ward) into the ward so they assumed they were members. They could tell they were a bit confused after sacrament meeting so they asked if they needed directions to their Primary and Relief Society. They found out that they weren’t members but have family whom have been wanting them to investigate for years. Sunday morning the mom asked her son, “Do you want to go to Chuckee Cheese today?” He told her, “No Mom, let’s go to sacrament meeting and get baptized.” Our missionaries have taught them all of the lessons and they are planning to surprise their family who are members with a “White Christmas”!

     Tonight we spoke at a youth Christmas fireside in the Long Beach Stake. They had a really good turnout, the chapel was full with beautiful young people. The Long Beach stake is made up of mostly Polynesian members. They sing so beautifully and are full of faith. We didn’t coordinate our talks but the youth speaker, Ted and I all spoke on gifts. The youth speaker talked about how we should give Heavenly Father the gift of following His Son, Ted spoke on the great gift of the Atonement and the Gospel and I spoke on how sharing the Gospel is a gift we should give to our family and friends. It was really awesome to spend an hour with such a wonderful group of young people.

     This is what President Eyring said about giving gifts to the Lord, “The spirit of Christmas puts in our hearts a desire to give joy to other people. The celebration of Christmas helps us keep our promise to always remember the Lord and His gifts to us. And that remembrance creates a desire in us to give gifts to Him.”
     “He has told us what we could give Him to bring Him joy. First, we can, out of faith in Him, give a broken heart and a contrite spirit. We can repent and make sacred covenants with Him.”

     “Second, you can give Him the gift of doing for others what He would do for them. There is a long list of possibilities in the book of Matthew. There we read words from our Redeemer, which we all hope to hear and to speak when we see Him after this life:”

     “Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

     “When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

     “Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

     “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:37–40).

     “In those words the Lord makes clear what gifts we might give Him out of our gratitude. Each act of kindness to anyone becomes a kindness to Him because He loves all of Heavenly Father’s children. And because that brings joy to Him, it also brings joy to His Father, to whom we owe thanks beyond measure.”

     “Many of you will in the Christmas season find ways to give food to people who are hungry. As you do, you bring joy to the Lord. Yet He taught us that there is a way to give an even more priceless and lasting gift. He said, ‘I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst’ (John 6:35). With all the kindnesses we give for Him, the greatest we can offer is to point those we love and serve toward Him, the only source of eternal life.”

     I am so grateful for the many gifts Heavenly Father has given me – especially the gift of His Son! We want to do all we can to let everyone know about this wonderful gift.

     We pray each of you will enjoy the Spirit of this season.


We love each of you,

The Long Beach Buberts