Elder Carston Mark Calder

On the Monday before Christmas we spent the entire day from 11AM to 9PM with our friend Shaun from Skyline ward. It was awesome to be able to give him a pretty authentic simulated missionary day. We had a great companionship study talking about finding and how to street contact, and put that to use by talking to everyone we could throughout the day. We didn't start teaching anyone but we made a lot of people feel happier and felt good being friendly to people in the community. We did send off a referral for this interested guy to the Spanish Elders! And we had some very inspired stop-bys.  We were able to invite a young man from an inactive family to pray to get his work schedule changed, had a really concise and clear 15-minute lesson on the Plan of Salvation with a young family, and had a little coordination meeting with our relief society president which was pretty productive.  I was really impressed by how willing Shaun is to work and how important Heavenly Father is to hi...

What stood out to me this year at Christmas is how relevant the Christmas message is year-round. With most of the pageantry and usual festive trappings stripped away, I was privileged with a lot more time to think about what exactly Christ came to earth to do and the love He exhibited always (even when it wasn't frosty and festive outside). I didn't ask for as many presents this year, frankly I don't really need much as a missionary besides new clothes (and I got those). But I felt joy as I tried to prayerfully find opportunities to serve others and help them feel uplifted today.  We made cinnamon rolls and gave them to some people who were not having a happy holiday. Our upstairs neighbor just got laid off after many years at his job. We gave him some cinnamon rolls and when we got home this evening he had propped the Tupperware we gave him up against our door, full of treats he got for us. Another man knocked on our door last night looking for a package Amazon was suppose...