Merry Christmas (Week 14)

What a wonderful time of the year where we get to celebrate our Savior's birth and the life He lived here on earth for us. Christmas is becoming more and more commercialized each year, and being a missionary separated from the world, I can now see how far we have moved from the true meaning of

Christmas. God gave us His most divine gift, His only begotten son’s life. The Savior gave freely to everyone out of pure love. He came here to set the perfect example for us to live righteously. He sacrificed everything for us to live with our Father in heaven again. The least we can do to give back to our Savior this Christmas is to serve those in need. The best way to give and serve is to do it anonymously, without seeking recognition.

Things are going well here in Shawnee. Elder Bushman got transferred to Wichita Falls TX, and Elder Jenkins is my new companion who left from Wichita Falls TX. Elder Jenkins and I are focusing on

growing the ward down here in Shawnee, and creating ward unity. The ward can't grow until the ward is unified and seeking to do missionary work. We are starting to set up Family Home Evenings with different families in the ward and inviting less active members and investigators, to create ward unity and fellowship. Home Teaching and missionary work are so important in a ward to bring less active and recent converts to church. Fellowship is everything. This will help our investigators and less actives come to church.

We have begun to find more solid people to teach and we have been digging though the area book

looking at old contacts and seeing if any of the people would be good to teach again. W~ is still struggling with coming to church but her testimony is growing each time we visit. Also we are visitingthe A~ family who live out in Bethel. We visited them yesterday and talked about the spirit of Christmas and read the story of Christ's birth in the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 1). They are a solid family looking for the gospel, it’s hard to meet with them but we are going to try to visit with them more.

We are not going to be able to do too much on Christmas, because we can only visit those with set appointments and so far we don’t have very many. I'm looking forward to calling home and talking to you guys. 

I love you all and Merry Christmas.

Sincerely, Elder Watkins