What Can I Give Him, Poor As I Am?

email 15 Dec 2015

Our weeks keep getting busier and busier! I try my best to include everything in my email. But there are just too many activities to get them all in! We've been having fun in our trio! It's a pretty good dynamic and we're getting better at teaching with the three of us. We've been getting a lot of lessons done from being able to split up.

This is something that I wanted to share but I didn't know how to go about putting it into my email. So it'll just be it's own thing. A Kangaroo is a mixture of a deer and a t-rex. 

We've had some amazing lessons and miracles happen this last week! I don't remember if I've talked about Alex or not. I think I have. Well Alex hasn't read in front of us. Ever. We had a lesson with him where we sat in silence for 15 minutes waiting for him to read. For a while we were contemplating if he could actually read or not. But in this last lesson, HE READ 9 WORDS! I know this doesn't sound like a big deal. BUT IT WAS HUGE! It was a miracle.

Another miracle! We were pondering which ward we should go to Sunday morning. We prayed about it and felt we should go to a specific ward that has no work in it right now and that I hadn't attended yet. So we went there and afterwards we were chatting with some people when this lady comes up to us and tells us that a young woman was there with her two sisters that weren't members. So we walk over there to introduce ourselves and it turns out that these two girls have been going to church for 2 months! When we talked to them they told us that they really really wanted to be baptized! So later that day we went to their house for the first lesson. These girls are prepared by Heavenly Father to accept the gospel at this time. These two amazing girls are going to be baptized together on December the 26th! And the best part is that their mom watched their example and is now coming back to church and sitting in on the lessons. Heavenly Father is so merciful towards us. Blessings and miracles keep being poured (or snowed) upon us!

Yesterday we woke up to a whopping SEVEN inches of snow! Can I just say how beautiful it was? Ogden it kind of ugly with it because all the snow turns dirty and black. But out in the country (where I always seem to be) it's BREATHTAKING. It looks like a calendar.

The snow made me think of the song "In the Bleak Midwinter". It starts off talking about snow then turns to Christ's birth. I was pondering why it did that and thought it was because Christ came in a similar way to snow. Quiet, pure, almost unnoticeable. But when all is done, it makes a huge difference. And it's noticeable. Just like His atonement. Some don't like snow. But today we went sledding and I had a BLAST! I think that's also like Christ and His atonement. If we use it, it makes up happy! Just like I used the snow. If we use His atonement by being the best we can be and by keeping His commandments, we have a blast! Sometimes we look at it as being freezing cold and wet. We look at the gospel as restricting or hard. But when we live the gospel, we love it.

In the Bleak Midwinter - Sissel with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti written before 1872 in response to a request from the magazine Scribner's Monthly for a Christmas poem. It was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904. The poem became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst. (Wikipedia)

In the bleak midwinter

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficedThe Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart. 

We've been singing to everyone that we can sing to. Our favorite to sing right now is "In the Bleak Midwinter". It's fun because we all three sing so we can sing in three part harmony and we sound pretty good, if I do say so myself. :) One of our favorite families invited us over for their family Christmas dinner and party. And when we were leaving we left them with a song. I couldn't help but notice a lady in the back starting to cry. After our song she came up to us and proceeded to tell us how she was just reading the poem of "In the Bleak Midwinter" and how much the poem touched her heart. She felt a real need to "Give Him her heart" as the poem says. She was having a rough time that specific day and she said that our song reminded her that she needed to turn to God more in her life. It was a really special experience to know that we can deliver revelation for Heavenly Father through the power of music.

I've been studying the Christmas Story in preparation for Christmas and also the musical fireside. As I was studying, I realized that it would be CRAZY to try and follow a star. If I tried to follow a star, it wouldn't go too well. But I thought that the star they followed was a lot brighter than the other ones. It was obviously the star to follow. So it is in life. The gap between God and the world is getting bigger and bigger. There is a noticeably bright star we need to follow. There's a reason one of Christ's names is "The Light". I'm sure it still wasn't easy for them to follow a star, even as bright as it was. And it's not always easy to make the right decision to follow Jesus Christ in life. But I don't believe they would have found Christ if they had followed the general direction of the star. They followed with exactness. And so must we. For if we follow the brightest, most glorious star, we will reach Him.

The Christmas Story Videos

I'm doing great out here! I'm so so so incredibly grateful to be on a mission and to be here during Christmas. I love my Savior and I invite all of you to discover for yourself why He was born. #ASaviorIsBorn

Love, Sister Sarlls