It's Christmas time!! 🎄

Heyo again everybody! I hope you all had an amazingly amazing Christmas season, I know I did!

This Christmas week we had an amazing Zone Conference! I learned so much from it and it was really fun.

One of my favorite things we learned was about Consecration, which means to set apart, to dedicate, to make an object of honor and veneration, to devote and dedicate to a purpose, to make intently holy or sacred.

During Christmas time, most families have traditions that they do every year, but maybe we don't always appreciate traditions. We don't necessarily dislike them, but we forget why they were special in the first place, and they start to become routine, rather than Ritual.

If something we do is routine, then we don't really thing or care about ot too often, it's something that we do because we have to or we always do it. But if something is Ritual, that means it's something that teaches you or makes you a better person, it's something that changes you. The difference is whether or not it is consecrated to you.

Even in activities that we do all year round, we forget why they're important, like maybe praying every morning, or going to church, or whatever it is. Instead of letting them become routine, we have to always remind ourselves why we do what we do, and consecrate our actions, and let them change us for the better.

Anyway, beyond that, the rest of the week was weird. Elder Whipple got sick for two days, and we were stuck inside that whole time. It was really boring, but I got to do a lot of studying, so that was good. Then when he got better, the weather dropped to -30, so we had to stay inside FURTHER.

Luckily we did in fact get better for Christmas time, and after church we had an amazing dinner with bishops family.

So that's about all from me! I actually enjoyed my week a lot despite the cabin fever. Let me know how your Christmases went! I love you all so much, have a wonderful, wonderful new years!

Elder Hatch