Merry Christmas

First and foremost, Merry Christmas. I love you all, and you´re awesome.

Last Christmas, I talked a little bit about Christ´s birth in Jerusalem. About the sheperds and how they found Christ and then they went out and shared their experiences. This year I would like to share some thoughts on what happened during that Christmas season over 2000 years ago in the Americas. (We´re gonna be in 3rd Nefi 1, for those who want to follow along :D )

It doesn´t go into as much detail as The Bible when describing the night of his birth, but it does give us some interesting insights. First off, the righteous people of this land were waiting, and looking forward to the birth of Christ (vs8). Their lives were on the line for simply believing in the words of the prophets and hoping that Christ would come (vs9). Nefi, went and prayed all day long and the Lord told him to be of good cheer for that night, He would come into the world (12-14).

Then the sign came. There was a day, and a night, and a day as if it were one day. And I love what it says happened after that. First a ton of people fell to the ground because they knew that this was the sign of the birth of their Savior (vs 16). But the scriptures teach us that right after that, they began to understand that the Son of God would soon appear (vs 17). And this didn´t just happen to a few of them, but unto all the inhabitants upon the face of the land (vs17). They all fell the earth and they all began to understand a little better the prophets, and they began to accept the idea that Christ was coming.

Then the new star appeared (vs21), and it says that right after that, Satan began to spread lies through the people but that the majority of the people resisted and converted unto the Lord (vs22). From their Nefi went out, found, taught and baptized lots of people. And it says that as he did so, the people once again begin to have peace in the land (vs23).

This Christmas, I invite all to reflect on the fact that Christ came to the earth, that He was born all those many years ago. Let us begin to understand a little bit better what that means for us, and for those around us. If we fall to the ground cause we get hit with such a strong realization, even better :).  As we reflect on this, let us also understand that coming unto Christ through baptism and repentence is the only way that we can truly have peace in our land and in our lives.

I love you all. I know Christ lives and that he is my Lord and Savior. I hope that this Christmas, we can all come to know and understand that a little bit better.

Love,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Elder Kearon on the 70

Well, well. What a week! Sooooo much travel, yet so much happened. Dad, just so you know, travel in spain is boring. There isn´t any wildlife, and there are no trees besides olive trees, and they get old after about 6 months. The coolest things to see are cities and castles and cathedrals and old Don Quijote windmills here in La Mancha off in the distance, but you don´t usually get much of that in train. The special training on the other had was great! I had the chance to tranlate the message of Elder Kearon for 6 or so native spanish speakers at the conference, and that was a great experience.

Elder Kearon spoke about many things. His main focus was that we have the power to choose. My testimony of the importance of free agency was strengthened as I listened and reiterated the words he spoke. It is our decision whether we let ourselves give into fear. We can choose to be fearless. We can choose to do and be whatever we want. He spoke of the need to learn to discern between the good and evil spirit. The good spirit uplifts, the evil brings down. When we here a negative voice in our head, we´d best not listen to it, rather we should push it out. Does that mean we don´t identify our problems and mistakes? No. It just means that we don´t dwell on them. We identify them, come up with a plan to better ourselves, and then we push forward.

It was a good conference. Afterward, we went on intercambios, and that was a good experience, we had lots of miracles and blessings during those 24 hours.

We also went again to Manzanares this week. The members are excited to work with us, and we are excited to work with them.

Love you all,

Elder Garrett B Turley

He said it is finally getting cold outside!
This is Garrett and Elder Kiffe 

Garrett and Elder Cowley (He's from Mesa, he's in our stake)