I am so grateful to hear that you are all having a wonderful Christmas season and are having the opportunity to experience and remember the true meaning and reason for the season. Yeah, I thought it was getting pretty cold here, but after what y'all were describing I have realized that I am really living in the tropics. Have fun pixie-ing the family you prayerfully chose to help out. That will be a great experience, just like it always is. Those precious memories and experiences of being able to help and serve others around Christmas time, or any other time of the year, are truly ones that we hold onto forever and which remind us of our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ and help us draw closer to them. There was always that feeling of true joy and happiness as we turn our lives to facing our Savior and follow earnestly after Him. Ultimately, there is joy, peace, and confidence in coming to know and experience by the Spirit that we are doing as He would do and are living our lives in ways that are pleasing to Him and our Heavenly Father. This week has been one filled with miracles. Truly when you go through the rough weeks, if we hold on faithful, the Lord will send us miracles and tender mercies and "We can have hope now, because of what He did then." We started off the week with some exchanges after a particularly awesome district meeting talking about virtue, diligence, and obedience and how we can and must pray in faith. I went with Elder Young to Lanett and we met some pretty awesome people. We came to one guy who came out to us and began to challenge everything we had to say. He was nice and considerate but nevertheless was trying to disprove everything we were saying. I found myself becoming angry and trying to explain everything from my own knowledge of the scriptures in trying to prove everything we believed was true. It was contentious and consisted of the situation Joseph Smith experienced as preachers and ministers battled and argued over their own religious perspectives and beliefs using their own interpretations of the same scriptures. Ultimately, I came to realize and tried to emphasize and invite this man to study and pray about and ask God if The Book of Mormon is true. It is the keystone of our religion. This message lives and dies with the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. The man eventually said that he planned on reading it and we invited him to pray and ask God as he did so if it was true. This experience helped me realize the importance of The Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost in helping us draw closer to our Savior and our Heavenly Father and in assuring and bearing testimony to us of truth. It reminded me of the constant need to strengthen our testimonies by studying and praying about the Book of Mormon, going to church, and doing all the little things that invite the Spirit to teach, testify, and guide us. The Spirit is the means by which all good is done and we cannot proclaim the gospel without the Spirit. It gave me a renewed determination to always live worthy of the Spirit and do the things that the Lord has commanded us to do so that we might learn of Him and have His Spirit to be with us. Later on, on Friday, we went out to Hogansville and had some pretty awesome visits. I remember one especially with a Sister whom she and her family have been slightly less active for a while. We met with her and she talked about her testimony and her desire to return and all the blessings her Heavenly Father and Savior had given unto her. We had the chance to share our testimonies with her and to listen. She told us that she was grateful we had come and that it was a blessing she really needed. Afterwards, I felt that we should go up to one house and knock. We testified of the Light the World initiative and they invited us back this week. It was amazing to see how the Lord was guiding us and answering our prayers to lead us to those whom He wanted us to visit. On Saturday, we had a great time as a branch at the Christmas party. We had two investigators show up who also brought two friends. We feel that they had a good time and we are excited to meet with them again today. We had Mexican food catered and there was a lot of everything left over so Elder Lloyd and I have a surplus of food for the next couple of days. We were also so grateful to the branch. They have all gotten us something for Christmas and we were so thankful to see their generosity and thoughtfulness towards us. We are grateful to be able to serve them and help them in their missionary efforts. They are truly amazing people and I love that I have the chance to associate with all of them and those whom we have been able to teach. We all got to sing Christmas carols together which was really fun; starting with a fun version of act-it-out 12 Days of Christmas and ending with some sacred hymns of our Savior's birth. Finally, yesterday Elder Lloyd and I did something called Windows of Heaven which is basically a preplanned 2 hour period of tracting in which we commit or covenant with the Lord to talk with everyone in a prayerfully considered place at a prayerfully considered time. We started off having a fairly difficult time but the Lord helped us push through and be able to talk to several open and receptive people. We were eventually guided to a door at which the family initially asked us to return later but then invited us in as we began to share our message. They had just heard that morning that their son was in some great trouble and they were yearning for the peace of the gospel. We shared the Restoration with them and the father committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it that night. We are excited to be able to follow up with them. The Lord truly knows and understands us. True joy and peace can only be found by following and coming to personally know Jesus Christ. I listened to Elder Ballard and Elder Bednar's last conference talks and I would highly recommend them. I also get to skype on Sunday for about 40 mins. I will probably do it around 1 in the afternoon your time. I look forward to being able to talk to all of you and see how y'all are doing! Keep the faith. Hurrah for Israel! This ends the message from the happy missionary!
Love,
--
Elder Daric Meyers
P.S. Here is a video of the Christmas party I think. I haven't watched it yet.
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