Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2017

Elder and Sister Lake

Wangenerstrasse 88/90

88212 Ravensburg

Deutschland

Merry Christmas to friends and family!

We want you all to know how much we miss you this Christmas season.  It is definitely different to experience Christmas so far away from family, friends and loved ones.  So please know how much we love each of you and that we think of you often.  We are doing well and getting into the Christmas Season here in Germany.  We have a little two-foot table-top Christmas tree which is festively decorated, a friend gave us an Advent Wreath, and we burn one of the four candles on each of the four Advent Sundays, and we have a little German Christmas decoration with candles in the window, received as a gift from family at home.  Each of these helps to bring the Christmas spirit into our home and lives.  We enjoy our occasional evening stroll through the Christkindlmarkt in the old city of Ravensburg, and love how the German people honor and celebrate their Christmas traditions.  We must add that we are enjoying the more simplified approach to Christmas this year.  Rather than the usual hustle and bustle, the shopping, traffic and the heavy emphasis on gifts, we are really trying to enjoy the simple beauty of this Christmas season in Germany.  Christmas appears less commercialized here and there seems to be less of an emphasis on the shopping and gifts, but we certainly feel the value placed on the gift of time, friendship and food. 

This season we are pondering on the Savior and His Gift to us, feeling tremendous gratitude to our Father in Heaven for his bounteous blessings, grateful for family and friends and striving this season to find ways to reach out and bless others in our expanding German circle of missionaries, friends and acquaintances (#Lighttheworld).  So, as we celebrate the Christmas season, we feel a profound measure of gratitude to a loving Heavenly Father who sent his Son to provide a way that we may each find our way home, and a reverent appreciation to our Savior Jesus Christ, who teaches us how to love and to live, and who was willing to submit to His Father’s will.  May we each strive this season and ever to follow Him, to be more loving, more helpful, more forgiving, more encouraging, more supportive and more patient with everyone we associate with, be it family, friends, co-workers or strangers.  Each of us carry our own insecurities, burdens and trials and how we all appreciate a kind word, a helping hand, a smile and the love of the Savior, often delivered to us through the hands of others.  To date, the primary thing we have learned on our mission (among so many lessons) is Gratitude to Heavenly Father.  Our eyes have been opened and we are so thankful and feel so blessed to have you as family and friends.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2018!

With Love,

Elder and Sister Lake