Hi There,
Can you believe Christmas is next week?! Oh, my word, it doesn’t feel like it yet. I miss not being a part of the Annual Nativity Exhibit back home and seeing everyone take on the spirit of the season. Sigh, but I love it here in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission field. The people here are amazing, helpful and always smiling! I am grateful for God’s little tender mercies like the one in this picture. One of our young missionaries gave us this wonderful little olive wood nativity. I know he doesn’t know that I collect nativities and love to volunteer them to be displayed in the annual exhibit. It brought great joy to me to open this package.
I was torn between giving three snippets from this week’s studies or simply bearing my testimony of Jesus Christ. Umm… Well, it’s the Saviors’ birth next week. I should bear my testimony of the importance of that in my life.
I am grateful that a 14-year-old boy, Joseph Smith, had enough of an empty cup that the Lord could pour into it. A young boy who was lost as to which church to join and read in the scriptures, James 1:5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” to know whom to ask. A young boy who had enough faith in a loving God to actually do what it said. I’m grateful that when a 22-year-old me, a young single mother who desired to know who she was, or more importantly whose she was, she could follow that same verse. I needed to know where my young daughter and I should go to become the daughters of God that He wanted us to become: honest and virtuous women of strong faith and actions that represented Him. I’m grateful for the day I kneeled beside my sleeping daughter’s bed and prayed to the Lord, with a sincere heart, with real intent to act, with faith in Jesus Christ, to a kind and loving Heavenly Father - desiring to know where he wanted me to be, where could my faith in Him grow, where could my relationship with Him be strengthened, where could I learn more of the attributes of the Savior that I needed to develop in my own life, and how I could know the path I needed to be on that would help me to be not just my mother’s daughter, but to be my Heavenly Father’s faithful daughter.
When Jesus Christ stretched forth his arms on the cross to become my Savior, that is something I am unworthy of, yet he still loved me enough to offer himself anyway (not just for me, for you too). I am grateful for his atoning sacrifice to help a lost daughter to find her way and change her heart, change her mindset, and change her life: a decision I will never forget or regret. My decision to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior has been the most and the BEST decision, I have ever made. I continue to strive to be more like Him, to live more like Him, act more like Him, love more like Him and serve more like Him.
I am grateful for the ability to study and learn from the Bible and another testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon. These books teach me how to live my life as a daughter of God and keep me on a covenant path back to Him.
I am grateful for my family and a wonderful husband who loves and studies to be a faithful son of our Heavenly Father. I am grateful for good friends who are always supportive of my choices and who are always a ready ear. I am thankful for the Wards that have helped and continue to help shape me. I am grateful for those who have served me in my times of need. I am grateful for those who have allowed me to grow by serving them in their times of need. I am grateful for my faith in and my testimony of Jesus Christ as the only way back to our Heavenly Father. I am grateful to serve a fulltime mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am grateful to the young missionaries who leave their home, family, friends, school, and life to serve and preach the gospel to all the world.
May the Lord bless you and may you be willing to accept it. Remember he loves you, and so do I.
Afehyiapa (Merry Christmas)
Sister Ladner, MCH
Ghana Cape Coast Mission
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