GRAND PRIZE WINNER 2013 Christmas Past

Posted by on Dec 25, 2013 in Christmas Past 2013 |

Our 2013 Christmas Past Appreciation Drawing is finished.  We enjoyed bringing back the past and hope you have enjoyed it too.  Have a Merry Christmas! Congrats to Rebecca Dawson, our GRAND PRIZE Missouri to Nauvoo to Winter Quarters Tour drawing winner!!!! Be sure you contact our office this week at 801-272-5601 or info@mormonheritage.com to redeem your Missouri to Nauvoo to Winter Quarters tour prize!...

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Answer & Winner 12th Day Christmas Past

Posted by on Dec 24, 2013 in Christmas Past 2013 |

Answer 12th Day Christmas Past:  Pres. Eyring  realized that “To Be Home for Christmas” was about being with family, but more importantly it was a desire to feel enveloped in the love and the Light of Christ in our Eternal families and home above. Story still available on yesterday’s 12th Day Question website blog post. Congrats to 12th Day drawing winner, Peggy Spencer, who won an olive wood holy family statue hand carved from...

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Final Question & Story 12th Day Christmas Past

Posted by on Dec 23, 2013 in Christmas Past 2013 | 3 comments

  Question 12th Day Christmas Past:  What does “Home for Christmas” mean to Henry B. Eyring?  (Today is the final day to be entered into our tour drawings. The 12th Daily Prize winner will be posted tomorrow morning, to be entered comment and share about the story on our blog. The Grand Prize Winner of a FREE TOUR will be posted tomorrow evening. For one last, extra entry, make a separate post on FB about a special memory you experienced on one of our tours!)   Home for Christmas   There was a song I heard first when I was a little boy—a song about Christmas and home. Those were days of war when many people were away from their homes and family—a dark time for those who feared that they might not be reunited with loved ones in this life. I remember my feelings for home and family when I walked by one house on the way to school at Christmastime and saw a little flag with a gold star on it hung in the window. It was the home of a girl I knew in school. Her brother, not much older than I, had been killed in the war. I knew his parents and felt some of what they did. On the way home after school, I would feel grateful anticipation for the glad welcome I knew awaited me.   When I turned on the radio in our living room during the Christmas season, I would hear words and music that still echo in my mind. A few lines of that song touched my heart with a yearning to be with family. I was living with my parents and my brothers in a happy home, so I knew somehow that the yearning I felt was for more than to be in a house or in the family life I then enjoyed. It was about some future place and life, even better than I knew or had yet imagined.   The line of the song that I remember best is “I’ll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams.” The house in which I decorated Christmas trees with my mother and father in those happy days of my childhood still stands, largely unchanged. A few years ago I went back and knocked on the door. Strangers answered. They allowed me to step into the rooms where the radio had been and where our family had gathered around the Christmas tree.   I realized then that the desire of my heart was not about being in a house. It was about being with my family, and it was a desire to feel enveloped in the love and the Light of Christ, even more than our little family had felt in the home of my childhood.   We can with confidence set a goal to make this Christmas...

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Answer and Winner 11th Day Christmas Past

Posted by on Dec 23, 2013 in Christmas Past 2013 |

Answer 11th Day Christmas Past:  Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley wished for us to “spend some time in silent meditation and quiet reflection on the wonder and the majesty of the peace that comes from Him, His infinite love which each of us may feel, and an overwhelming sense of gratitude for that which He freely gave us at so great a cost to Himself—these are of the true essence of Christmas.” Story still available on yesterday’s 11th Day Question website blog post. Congrats to 11th Day drawing winner, Paula Brossard, who won an olive wood holy family statue hand carved from...

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Question & Story 11th Day Christmas Past

Posted by on Dec 22, 2013 in Christmas Past 2013 | 3 comments

Question 11th Day Christmas Past:  What did Pres. Hinckley wish each of us would take time to reflect upon during Christmas? (To be entered into today’s giveaway & FREE tour drawing, Comment & Share your thoughts of story below on Facebook or our blog.) When all is said and done, when all of history is examined, when the deepest depths of the human mind have been explored, nothing is so wonderful, so majestic, so tremendous as this act of grace when the Son of the Almighty, …He who had condescended to come to earth as a babe born in Bethlehem, gave His life in ignominy and pain so that all of the sons and daughters of God of all generations of time, every one of whom must die, might walk again and live eternally. He did for us what none of us could do for ourselves. I have a simple story I would like to recount. It is something of a parable. I do not have the name of the author. Perhaps it will have special interest for our children. I hope it will be a reminder for all. “Years ago there was a little one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough that no teacher had been able to handle them. “A young, inexperienced teacher applied, and the old director scanned him and asked: ‘Young fellow, do you know that you are asking for an awful beating? Every teacher that we have had here for years has had to take one.’ “‘I will risk it,’ he replied. “The first day of school came, and the teacher appeared for duty. One big fellow named Tom whispered: ‘I won’t need any help with this one. I can lick him myself.’ “The teacher said, ‘Good morning, boys, we have come to conduct school.’ They yelled and made fun at the top of their voices. ‘Now, I want a good school, but I confess that I do not know how unless you help me. Suppose we have a few rules. You tell me, and I will write them on the blackboard.’ “One fellow yelled, ‘No stealing!’ Another yelled, ‘On time.’ Finally, ten rules appeared on the blackboard. “‘Now,’ said the teacher, ‘a law is not good unless there is a penalty attached. What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’ “‘Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response from the class. “‘That is pretty severe, boys. Are you sure that you are ready to stand by it?’ Another yelled, ‘I second the motion,’ and the teacher said, ‘All right, we will live by them! Class, come to order!’ “In a day or so, ‘Big Tom’ found that his lunch had been stolen. The thief was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old. ‘We have found the thief and...

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