DECEMBER 17th

DECEMBER 17th

• Thought/story: "Miracle Enough"

• Scripture: Luke 15:4-7
Event: The Lost Sheep
Jesus Christ helped sinners

• Recipe: Cherry-Cheese cake (This is good when feeding a crowd because it is easy and it makes 2 cakes!)

Ingredients: 1 pkg. (18 ~ ounces) white cake mix" 4 cups powdered sugar, 1 pint cool whip, (2) 8 oz. Pkg. Cream cheese, softened; 2 cans (21 ounces each) cherry pie filling
Instructions: Prepare cake mix according to pkg. Directions. Pour into 2 greased 9x13pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min. Cool. Beat cream cheese and sugar until fluffy; fold in the whipped cream. Spread over each cake. Top with pie filling. Chill 4 hours or overnight.

• Tradition: One fun idea to help you deal with all of the holiday paper creations that kids bring home from school and Church is to create a large paper Christmas tree that hangs on the door to his or her bedroom. Your child can then hang his or her creations on and around this big tree. If two children share a room you could put one tree on each side of the door. At the end of the season, take a picture of the tree masterpiece with your child standing proudly in front. That way they won't be too crushed when the majority of the masterpieces have to be thrown away!

• Small gift idea: The 20 best stocking gifts we've ever received:

1. Homemade jam
2. Tin cookie cutter
3. Mom's recipes
4. Paint brushes
5. Homemade bookmarks
6. A harmonica
7. A piggy bank
8. A diary
9. A neat kite
10. Animal crackers in a box
11. A half-dozen scented candles
12. Snowman pin
13. A favorite snapshot in a tiny frame
14. Red woolly mittens
15. Seeds for summer
16. A little flag
17. Silly sunglasses
18. A love letter from St. Nick
19. Candy, of course
20. A personalized cookie
(From Gooseberry Patch: Country Friends Collection: Christmas)


MIRACLE ENOUGH
By Joseph Walker

Okay, so maybe I was a little edgy. After all, it was my first Christmas away from home and I was feeling a little... well, empty. Which is not to say that I didn't want to be on my mission or anything. But I don't know-some how pushing a pencil in the mission office in San Diego wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I answered the call to "go ye into all the world," you know what I mean?
Then I got a letter from Becky, which is usually great news. Only this time she told me that she was elected to the senior prom royalty, which meant she had to go to the dance. Without me.
Yeah, Iknow - we said she was supposed to date while I was gone. And I was happy for her-really, I was. But couldn't she have just gone to the stupid dance and not told me about it, or at least waited until after we were married to tell me?
And then to top it off, Elder Reese and I went to the Rosencrans shopping center to do a little last-minute Christmas shopping, and the Santa Claus there was wearing-are you ready for this? - short sleeves and Bermuda shorts. Bermuda shorts, for Pete's sake! No wonder I was uptight.
Still, I surprised myself with my reaction to Elder Peck's request that Elder
Reese and I go to La Jolla to give a blessing to someone who had been in an accident
"Come on, Peck, that's a long drive,"I whined. "Can't someone up there do
it?"
"We've tried everyone we can think of," he said. "Sister Shaw said the kid
might not last too long, so we don't have a lot of time to find someone else."
Of course - Sister Shaw. Our nurse/informer in La Jolla who calls for the elders to come give a blessing every time someone has a hangnail in northern San Diego County.
"But why do we have to go?" I wanted to know. "Send Checketts and Jentzsch."
"Elder Jentzsch is sick."
"Jentzsch is always sick!"
Elder Peck looked at me icily. I suspect he had several suggestions for me
at the moment, some of which were probably physiologically impossible. But
he only offered one: "Then why don't you give him a blessing and heal him
so he can go to La Jolla for you?"
I was getting to Elder Peck, which was quite an accomplishment, when you stop and think about it. Here was a guy who had overcome polio, physical disability, and being born and raised in Idaho-not necessarily in that order-to become one terrific missionary. He was loving, compassionate, hard working, and a powerful, dynamic speaker. No one had ever seen him lose his cool until now. And the red splotches on his neck indicated that I was pushing him to the edge.
"I've got a better idea, I said. "Why don't you and Woodbury go? Just because you're the apes (that's San Diego Mission slang for A.P.s-assistants to the mission president) doesn't mean you don't have to get out and do a little +work once in a while."
"Yes it does!" The voice belonged to Elder Woodbury, the senior ape and reigning mission quipster. If there was a quicker wit in a white shirt and tie, I hadn't seen him.
"That's exactly what it means," Elder Woodbury continued good-naturedly. "When you're an ape you get to make assignments to all the little office monkeys.
So grab Cheetah and get out of here, chimp!"
"Just give me one good reason why you and Peck don't go. Just one."
"I'll give you three," Woodbury said, smiling calmly. "We don't want to, we
don't have to, and you do. 'Bye!"
He turned and walked into the ape office, closing the door firmly.
"But that isn't fair ... " I shouted.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm. It was Reese.
"Come on, Walk," he said. "Let's go."
"But those guys don't have the right ... " I complained. Elder Reese was already out the door, and instinctively I followed. But not before one last blast at the apes: "You big... big ... " I couldn't bring myself to say what I was thinking, so I settled for the first G-rated epithet that came to mind:
" ••• babies"
Elder Reese didn't say much as we drove north on Interstate 5 to La Jolla. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, he wasn't a high-intensity kind of guy. Calm and cool in any situation, Dennis Reese gave you the impression that he sort of distanced himself from mission mundanity. He just did his work and did it well, and then he went about his business. Perhaps that was why we got along so well. The contrast worked.
The other reason he didn't say much during the drive to the hospital was.... well, I didn't give him much of a chance to. The dam of my frustration had been unplugged and there was no stopping the flow now. I raged about the apes. I raged about being their office monkey. And I raged about Christmas without snow, Santas in Bermuda
shorts, capital punishment (don't ask),and senior prom escorts to be named later.
I was so busy raging that I didn't really notice when we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Elder Reese waited until I paused long enough to take a breath, then he suggested that we might want to have a prayer before we went in.
Oh yeah - the hospital. Somebody was sick in there. Dying, maybe. It was time to start thinking about him and his Christmas for a few minutes.
Elder Reese offered a sweet prayer, including a special request in my behalf.
"Father," he prayed, "please help my companion get over his anger so he can listen to thy Spirit. And give him the strength to handle whatever we might. encounter."
That last bit referred to my long-standing disdain of things medical- especially
if they had anything to do with blood. Elder Reese knew that I passed out the minute the fake blood started spurting during that scare-'em-into-using-seat-belts movie in high-school driver's education. And he knew I passed out during a hospital blood test
Every time we made a hospital visit he wondered whether or not he'd end up checking me in.
As it turned out, we both needed all the strength we could muster. Sister Shaw filled us in on the twenty-year old patient as we made our way to the intensive-care unit. He was a Marine from Arizona stationed at Oceanside, and had been driving his motorcycle when he slammed into the back of a truck parked on the side of the freeway. His parents had been contacted and were on their way from Arizona.
Meanwhile, Sister Shaw noticed the military edition of the Book of Mormon tucked in his jacket pocket, which is why she called for us to give him a blessing.
"To tell the truth, we're surprised that he's lasted this long," Sister Shaw
noted as we entered the ICU. "But every time I look at him I get this feeling
of urgency-I don't know-like there's unfinished business or something.
Maybe you guys can figure it out."
We walked to where the young man lay, and I was immediately grateful for Elder Reese's earlier prayer. Bandages covered most of the guy' s body, with
blood seeping through here and there. Body parts that weren't bandaged were
horribly bruised, and tubes and wires connected him to a battery of life-support systems. We were on the front line as medical science waged what looked to be a losing battle with death.
Sister Shaw whispered something to the two nurses who were attending him. They glanced at us, whispered something to Sister Shaw, and left.
"They think you're here to give him the last rites," she said. "1 didn't tell them
that you might be here to heal him. Either way, you've only got a few minutes."
Reese and I glanced at each other. Which would it be - release or healing?
Since Elder Reese had the consecrated oil in his pocket, he gingerly anointed
an unbandaged spot on the man's head and pronounced the accompanying prayer. Then he looked at me. It was my tum to complete the ordinance with a blessing as directed by the Spirit.
I was anxious but not overwhelmed as I placed my fingertips gently on the young man's head. I waited for words of spiritual insight and inspiration, but nothing came. Oh, I could hear a voice in my mind, all right. But it was my own voice and the words were mine:
'Why do we have to go?" "]entzsch is
always sick!" "You big babies!"
My hands were on the head of someme who was dying. A life was hanging in the balance. But my own words of bitterness and anger reverberated so loudly in my mind that I couldn't hear the soft whisperings of the Holy Spirit. Heck,I couldn't even remember the paient's name, or how to start the blessng.
"You okay, Walk?" Elder Reese asked after about forty-five seconds of heavy silence.
I took my hands off the young man's head. "I'm sorry," I said. "1 can't do it."
Elder Reese didn't say anything. He just looked at me for a second-concerned, not angry - then bowed his head and sealed his own anointing. It was a simple, powerful blessing in which the young Marine was assured of Heavenly Father's love and acceptance, and promised that he would live to acomplish his mission.
Sister Shaw dabbed at the tears in
her eyes as Elder Reese concluded the blessing. "Thank you, Elder," she said,
grasping my companion's hand with both of hers. "There was a beautiful,
peaceful spirit here. Everything is going to be okay."
Sister Shaw also shook my hand.
Only it was a different kind of a handshake more like an offer of comfort
and support. "How long have you been out, Elder?" she asked.
"About seven months," I said.
"Oh," she replied, knowingly. "First Christmas?"
"Yeah," I said. "First Christmas."
"Well, you've got a great companion, and you're doing great work," she said.
"You're going to be fine. Just work hard and hang in there."
I don't know why those words seemed so hollow and condescending.
But they stung just as surely as the tears I was choking back as we turned to leave the-lCU.
"Thanks again, Elders," Sister Shaw called after us. "And Merry Christmas!"
Yeah, sure-Merry Christmas. Especially now that I could add spiritual impotence
to my list of things to be uptight about.
The ride back to the mission office was quieter than our drive to La Jolla. I
was struggling with a conscience seared by unworthiness to receive spiritual
prompting. And Elder Reese was preoccupied with ... well, I wasn't sure. We were almost to Mission Bay when my companion at last broke the silence.
"Walk," he said, "what if he dies?"
I thought about the question and all that it implied. "I don't know," I said.
"Why did you say that he would live to serve a mission?"
"That's what I keep asking myself," Reese said. "I guess I said it because I
felt it."
"Well, if that's what the Spirit said, then it's going to happen. Have faith."
"Yeah, I guess you're right-faith," he said. Then he was silent. Again. When we got back to the office it was time for dinner. Then we made a few visits to investigators, but everyone was too busy with holiday arrangements to spend much time with us. We toyed with the idea of going home and opening a Chrisbnas present or two, just to lighten the mood. But that didn't feel right- to either of us.
So we found ourselves at the shopping center again, even though we had no idea what we were shopping for. As we made our way toward Santa the beachcomber, we noticed a little girl, no more than five years old, standing by one of Santa's pot-bellied elves, sobbing. Absently, I drifted over and asked if everything was okay.
"Well, I don't know," the elf said.
"This little girl seems to be lost, but I can't leave Santa to take her to the office." He glanced at my name tag, which identified me as a Mormon missionary.
You could almost see the wheels turning in his elfish mind.
"Hey, if you guys have a minute maybe
you could help her find her mom."
Since we didn't have anything else to do, Elder Reese and I each took a little
hand in ours. We made a quick run through the shopping center-including a stop at the candy store, of course. We connected with the little girl's frantic mother outside the manager's office.
She was so relieved that she offered to make a contribution to the Church for
our efforts. "No thanks, ma'am," said Elder Reese, who was smiling as happily as I
had seen him smile all day. "You just have a Merry Christmas, okay?"
"That's right," I said. "Merry Christmas!"
And I really meant it.
That simple act of service infused both of us with such joyful energy that we decided to spend the hour we had left roaming the shopping center looking for other people to help. We found several heavily burdened shoppers who needed a hand getting everything out to their cars. We stood in line to see Santa with a couple of kids while their parents slipped into the toy store. We helped one young woman break into
her car after she locked her keys inside. And I even tried on some slacks for a
woman who insisted that I was the exact same size as her boyfriend.
We were both happily talkative as we drove back to our apartment that night.
We had discovered what was missing from our Christmas celebration. The quickest way to minimize our own burdens and concerns, we decided, was to lighten someone else's -and to do so absolutely free of ulterior motives, conversion included. We made the commitment then and there to do an hour or two of service every day throughout the
holiday season. And who knew? That might even include doing something nice for the apes.
Our telephone was ringing as we entered the apartment. It was Sister Shaw calling to report that our patient had died.
"But the most incredible thing happened," she said. "There was no reason why he should have stayed alive as long as he did. Even after you left, his body systems and organs kept shutting down, but it was like he just refused to die. His parents finally got here about seven o'clock, and we took them immediately to see him. I had prepared them for the worst and told them that I didn't expect that their son would even know they were there. But as we walked up to his bed his eyes were open, and the other nurses were looking at me with this sort of amazed, confused expression on their faces.
"The boy's fingers began twitching, as if that were the only way he could reach out to his parents," Sister Shaw continued. "His mom and dad each took hold of a hand and whispered assurances of their love and concern. For the first time I could see tears in the boy's eyes. He seemed to summon up every ounce of strength that he had
left, and with great difficulty he formed these unmistakable words: 'I'm sorry. I
love you."
Sister Shaw paused, her voice choked with emotion. "His parents both told him how much they loved him, and how happy they were to have him back," she said. "Not long after that he was comatose again. But it was different this time more calm and peaceful, and none of that uneasiness I felt before.
He died about an hour later.
"I talked to his parents for a little while, and they said that there had been a major falling out in the family and they hadn't spoken with their son in more than a year. But he had called them the previous day and told them he was trying to put his life back together again. He had been working some things out with his bishop, and
now he was co~g home to patch things up with them. That's where he was headed when he got in the accident. And he lived long enough to complete his mission - just like Elder Reese promised.
"It wasn't the kind of Christmas miracle I expected," Sister Shaw concluded, "but it was miracle enough."
For her - and for us.


Joseph Walker writes a weekly syndicated column,
"ValueSpeak," which appears in about 400 newspapers
around the country. He is manager of Media Services
for the Church Public Affairs department.