Christmas 2025!
Before I begin sharing thoughts and pictures this week, I want to mention that our dear Elder Jeffry R. Holland passed away this week. He bore eloquent testimony of our Savior throughout his life. I'm grateful for these leaders who devote their life to testify of the divinity of Jesus Christ. This year, the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" touched my heart. The song was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a well-known poet. He was feeling deep despair in 1863. He had lost his wife in a tragic fire in their home and his son had been severely injured fighting in the civil war. He felt keenly the dissonance between the ideal of Christmas peace and the reality of a nation full of violence. When he heard the Christmas bells that year, he began his poem, I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men. I thought how, as the day had come, The belfries...