Light of the World Concert

For the month of December, the LDS church has been involved in the Light the World initiative. For 25 days members are urged to find 25 ways to follow Christ’s example of service. Mormon.org has a ton of great ideas listed under the Light the World heading, different things for each day, and a beautiful video to explain the purpose of the project. I love this and whoever came up with it is brilliant because not only does it focus Christmas back on Christ and his teachings but it also brings it back around to the spirit of the holiday as well, which is service and giving to others.

This Saturday, at the Restoration Site in Susquehanna, I joined my grandparents at the Light the World concert sung by the sister missionaries who serve at that branch. There are about 9-10 sisters serving there and I love to hear the missionaries sing and the program was very beautiful, the Spirit felt strongly during the entire evening. It was sort of bittersweet though, since this will be the last time all the sister missionaries will be together, a lot of them going home this Monday/Tuesday. I’ve been trying lately to remember church songs that I like, collecting them into a playlist. Going back to church, occasionally, we’ll sing hymns that I remember liking but I keep forgetting the names of them after the meetings are over.

So far, ones I can remember are:

“Love One Another”

“I Stand All Amazed”

“Because I Have Been Given Much”

“Scripture Power”

“If You Could Hie to Kolob”

“How Great Thou Art”

“Army of Helaman”

“Gethsemane”

“A Child’s Prayer”

From the program of the concert on Saturday night, my favorites were:

“Born is the Light of the World”

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

“He Sent His Son”

I absolutely loved the depth and sorrowful tone of sister Larson’s violin as she played along with sister Walker’s piano for “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” I wish I’d been keeping track for the other concerts the sisters have had but it was only after I started to feel remiss that I kept forgetting them that I decided to start writing them down. I’ll definitely be paying better attention from now on, realizing that the music is also part of the messages Heavenly Father is using to speak with me.

Our family has been attempting to keep up with the Light the World thing but it has been difficult. My siblings spent 5 days over at their father’s house this week and it is hard to keep in touch over it. I am so grateful that my mother, although not a practicing member, has been so supportive to my return to church and helping the kids keep up with it as well. She has been so engaged with this Light the World thing as well and I appreciate it so much.

Today, I went to the Montrose branch for church to meet with the Branch President, President Wilcox about tithing and starting the path to making myself temple-worthy. Thankfully, the things that I was doing before are not much of a sacrifice for me to stop doing them but my true challenge comes from understanding the wrong nature of these things and feeling sorrow for them. When you become accustomed to a way of life, you begin to define “normal” differently, especially when you look at things through the worldly lens. I have been blessed to be able to feel and compare how my life feels with and without the Spirit in it and I understand this on a core level, my heart sometimes extremely heavy over the time I have lost, finally realizing now that I have returned, how lost I was. Looking back and seeing all the things that I did trying to find my way, finding substitutes for Him. My challenge now, though, is recognizing how certain activities I engaged in were not only a part of that disconnect from His presence but also harming my own soul. I have not yet really realized shame or sorrow for these things, so, that is what I am working towards while also praying for forgiveness. Heavenly Father will let me know when I have gotten there.

It was so special getting to see my youngest little brother pass the sacrament and several people I knew from before were there. It was fast and testimony meeting since last week was stake conference, so, a lot of people got up to bear their testimonies. I really loved Sister Buffington’s testimony about appreciating everything as a gift, and several people I do not know talking about the power of prayer. Once again, I felt the Spirit talking to me through them, as relating to things in my life, especially experienced this weekend. It was a little awkward seeing one of the men there who knew me from drinking parties I went to with some of the ladies at Price Chopper. But we both acknowledged that everyone is at their own place on the journey and we’re all striving to get better and learn. The atmosphere is different than at Susquehanna but still really positive and the lessons are the same.