Christmas Sunday!

The Sunday before Christmas is always one of my favorites. We sing Christmas songs. This year the girls were able to sing a special song with the primary. I love watching them and seeing how excited they are to share their love of music. I love my family. I don't know where my life will be without them. Reflecting on the birth of Christ and the hope that we get from him is what this life is about. He is the reason for the season. 

This is Eric's testimony he shared with Emily.

I know you have heard my testimony, but it continues to change, much like yours has I'm sure!  It continues to grow and strengthen my love for our Savior and our Heavenly Father.  As I pause to reflect on this wonderful Christmas Season, my first as a member, I revel in the pure joy that I have for my Savior and all that he has done for me and will continue to do.  I just read Samuel the Lamanite prophesying of the coming Savior and the sign that will let the people know that he has been born.  How wonderful and difficult it would have been to live at that time.  I would like to think that I would have been on the side of righteousness, but I don't know.  It took me forever to have enough faith to trust in my Heavenly Father and decide to join the church and I wanted to hang on to my vices for so long.  Looking back, I don't know what I was waiting for.  It was all right in front of me and I refused to see it and accept it for what it was, a gift from heaven!  Thankfully I have seen the "light" and I cannot imagine my life with the Gospel in it.  Without the birth and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, more than ever before, I know I would not be able to get where I want to be after this life.  With my family for Eternity!  I know without a doubt that this is the one true church on the Earth today and it is our Savior's church!  He set the path for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father and he had to be the one to do it, the first born, because none of us could do what he did.  I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, who restored Christ's church on the Earth in the Last Dispensation.  I know that my brother, Jesus Christ, Atoned for my sins and yours and he is at the head of his church.  I know thatcher Heavenly Father loves and he knows each and every one of us by name.  What a joy it is to have that knowledge and how wonderful it is to share that with my family.  You are doing a wonderful work and I am so very proud of how much you have grown personally and spiritually.  I am in awe at the work you have set out to do...a work that I will never be able to do.  Because even when I go on a mission with Pollyanna, it will not be the same as what you are doing.