Advent Calendar - Light the World

As our children grew up the schools and various groups that they were in had fund raisers. Often those fund raiser would focus around the Christmas season and would include an Advent Calendar that would count down the days from December 1st to Christmas. The calendar would have a little flap for each day that they would open to find a chocolate treat.

This year The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has invited the world to join us as we honor Jesus Christ by following His example of sharing light and love. Since a new star first appeared above Bethlehem, Christmas has been a season of light, reminding us that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Together, we can celebrate His birth by making the world a brighter place. All we have to do is follow Him - His life, His example, and His teachings. In doing so, we can help Light the World.

On the LDS Church websites at LDS.Org or Mormon.org is a link to a different kind of advent calendar that counts down the days with short videos, teachings and challenges. We opened the first day of the calendar as we started our day today and accepted the challenge to make a difference. We invite you to likewise help light the world.

We had a very busy day including two scheduled Skype calls with Self-Reliance Service Missionaries, helping Phanna and Sameth with projects, and wide variety of everyday assignments. Our first Skype call was with Sister Roberts in Hong Kong, which is always a joy. After visiting with her she told us a friend wanted to say hello, Lynn Beckstead, one of Elder Oveson's former clients. We spent another half hour on Skype with him. Phanna wanted to work some more on the 2017 calendar, Sister Oveson had started a calendar for him several months ago but now it December so we need to get serious about it. This afternoon we had a Skype call with Sister Ricks in Thailand. Elder Ricks had gone with their daughter and son-in-law to the airport to see them off, they had been visiting since Thanksgiving. We also worked on our Institute lesson and our normal daily projects.