back to the basics

a few days ago i watched a documentary called "God grew tired of us". it's about some "lost boys" who have to move to America from Kenya. if you haven't seen it, i highly recommend it. it's really something to see how different our culture is and how hard it would be to move from one culture to the other. the most interesting part of the whole thing was when these boys were trying to catch on to the american way of celebrating Christmas. one of the boys was being interviewed about it and he said, "all i want to know is who this santa clause is and what he has to do with Christ? maybe i'm wrong, but in Kenya Christmas is about Jesus Christ". it really hit me. we add so much unnecessary stuff to things that are just perfect on their own. I recently read a talk, i think it was by Uchtdorf, and he talked about finding out what's really important and then throwing out everything else. we live in a world that is confused. we think we need to do everything to be anything in this world. i think we're missing it. we're missing what it's all about. how many times have you thought of doing something for someone or saying something to someone and have just let it pass you by? i know that i've done it more times than i can count. there are things for us to discover, there are people who need to be loved, people who need to be listened to, prayers that need to be said, jokes that need to be shared, tears that need to be shed. life is beautiful, and life is short. let's change the world one person at a time. let's see everyone as Christ would see them. let's try and be more like Him. if we can? the world will be better. and guess what? we surely can. :)

We need to get back to the basics of respect one for another and concern one for another, love and appreciation for another, working together, worshiping together, and living together as families who love the Lord and look to Him for light and strength and comfort. -Gordon B. Hinckley

love, laura