Christmas is upon us

So this is not in chronological order, but right now with so many glorious things going on and the Spirit of Christmas in full swing nothing really seems in order, so it is par for the course. :)

Up first we have Jon's Christmas Concert for Preschool that was Dec. 8th. It was absolutely adorable! The kids did a great job. There were a few "save me Jesus" type songs but Jon now knows Joy to the World and loves when he hears it at church or on the radio and he joins in. He is sitting next to his friend Emmerson.

Yes, they have camels on their heads. Each class was a different part of the nativity- angels, donkeys/barnyard animals, etc.
These sunglasses were worn during one of those Jesus save me songs. It was great!
The video at the end of this post is of one of those songs (Peter took more video with his work camera that I do not have right now so I may post more pics and videos later). Arabella partially knows this one because Jon sang it alot. It is a catchy song. Arabella and I went with some friends to the Gaylord (a huge fancy hotel) and saw their Christmas display. It was really cool. We are going to go there with my family next Monday and I am excited to see it with the lights on.

We picked up our Christmas tree on the first Saturday but waited until Monday to decorate so the branches would relax some. It is a lovely tree and the kids did a good job decorating.

Joey wanted a train under the tree and since we have a million Thomas pieces that is what is under there. We even wrapped the cargo and put small bows on the packages so it looks extra festive.

Such good helpers- really everything was quite evenly distributed.

It has been cold here but really only on Sundays-weird! My wonderful Peter started a fire on the first Sunday night so we would be extra toasty while we watched the First Presidency devotional. Jon and Arabella had to sit like me.

Lewisville City has a Christmas celebration at Town Hall with a parade and this year the cub scouts walked in it. Doesn't Peter look so good in that uniform and hat.

Our Relief Society activity this month was the production "Women at the Well". It was wonderful! We had a great turnout and we had asked sisters to invite the less active in our ward and to invite friends and neighbors and they did! The cast was made up by the women that consistently attend our additional meetings so I was pleased when the nearly 60 chairs we set up were nearly full. The spirt was definitely felt by all. My friend came and she loved it. I gave her a Book of Mormon with 3 Nephi 11 marked so that she could read it and understand who Jon and I were supposed to be.

My song starts out by saying "Come close my precious child..." so, I decided I should have a child to sing to and Jon was it. He actually learned a good portion of the song although he did not sing it while we were performing. He still asks for it when he is going to sleep at night. If you would like to see more pictures from it you can go here. We had a beautiful backdrop painted by a sister in our ward. I gave her a painting dropcloth and told her what I had in mind and she was incredible. I feel so blessed to get to serve with so many amazing women.

On that note, my presidency was released on Sunday (except for me). There were some changes that needed to be made in our ward and it affected my presidency. I have had such strong women supporting me. I will miss them. I am excited for the chance to work with new sisters and have new views, opinions, insights, strenghts, etc. I will miss the old I would not have survived with out them but I look forward to the new.

I was delivering some RS Christmas things on Sunday and I was so overcome by the truthfulness of the gospel. I love that we believe in revelation. We have modern day prophets that teach us from the scriptures and show us the way to navigate through this latter day dispensation through that revelation. The church has so many amazing members in it. I was also struck by just how many do not realize what there true potential is. I taught the RS presidency lesson this month and I focused on Believing Christ. It is funny how that is so hard to do. I believe in his teachings and his many miracles but because I live in the world and I am subjected to the enticements, judging, and input from the world it becomes easy to doubt that I can ever be good enough, strong enough, worthy enough to recieve all that my Father has in store for me. Yet, my life has been filled with so many good and great things daily that I should never doubt him. I can become what the Father knows I can and wants me to become. It will be a day by day process and I will not always make forward progress but that is where the atonement comes in. He never expected me to be able to do it without help and so He provided me with a Savior. Christ was born in humble circumstances, a teacher among the masses, a lover of all men, liberal with his time and godly power, was willing to pay the price even though he knew it would be harder than anything ever done or ever to be done in this world. He was then crucified and most gloriously resurrected. My song for our RS meeting was called He Came For Me and I know that without a doubt, I just wish more people knew that . Also, you are about to hear Jon's little song and you know what, I do have the joy of the Lord because he did save me.