Are You Ready For (Christ)mas

Hi Elder Penrod,


I hope you are doing well. How was your week? Did you get to do anything fun? How did transfers go?


Yesterday we had a talk given where they mentioned a common question around this time of year. We get a lot of people that ask the question of "Are you ready for Christmas?" How does that meaning change when we ask "Are you ready for Christ?" That hit me a little more this year. We do try to keep Christ in Christmas but in the hustle and bustle of making sure we have all the presents, the decorations, the traditions, and the dinners, do we keep room in our hearts for Christ? Do we try to find ways to quietly contemplate His life and the gift it was for us? Thank you for your Facebook post. I came across it right after this talk and it was perfect for me to sit and think about it.


I get a lot of people that stop me at work and at church to tell me how special your emails are to them. It means a lot to them to read your emails. I really love hearing from you both in email and our weekly calls. I hope that you don't mind it is so fun to see you and be able to hear how things are going.


I have another song lyric for you. It is my favorite lately:


Where Shepherds Lately Knelt


1. Where shepherds lately knelt 

and kept the angel's word

I come in half belief, 

a pilgrim strangely stirred,

but there is room and welcome there for me, 

but there is room and welcome there for me.


2. In that unlikely place I find him as they said:

sweet newborn babe, how frail!

and in a manger bed,

a still, small voice to cry one day for me

a still, small voice to cry one day for me


3. How should I not have known 

Isaiah would be there, 

his prophecies fulfilled?

With pounding heart I stare:

a child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me 

a child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me


4. Can I, will I forget 

how love was born, and burned

its way into my heart

unasked, unforced, unearned, 

to die, to live, and not alone for me, 

to die, to live, and not alone for me?

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