On the 10th Day of Christmas Past Re-cast… Question: Today’s “Light the World” is to honor your family tree. What infant (born near Christmas) and his father have been named after and known to their ancestors in the scriptures for 3,500 years? To be entered into today’s daily giveaway & FREE tour drawing- Read the story below; “Comment” & “Share” your answer on Facebook or our blog. Click Here for contest rules. They Named Him Joseph President Kimball felt it very important and often remembered the Prophet Joseph Smith’s birthday – December 23, 1805. In Dec. 1966, Elder Kimball (before he became the prophet) very literally honored Joseph’s given name in an article entitled “They Named Him Joseph:” “When theologians are reeling and stumbling, when lips are pretending and hearts are wandering, and people are ‘running to and fro seeking the word of the lord and cannot find it’ – when clouds of error need dissipating and spiritual darkness needs penetrating and heavens need opening, a little infant is born. Just a few scattered neighbors in a hilly region in the backwoods even know that Lucy Smith is expecting. There is no prenatal care, nor nurses, no hospital, no ambulance, no delivery room. Babies live and die in in this rough environment and few know about it. Another child for Lucy! No trumpets are sounded; no hourly bulletins posted; no pictures taken; no notice is given; just a few friendly community folk pass a word along. It’s a boy! Little do the brothers and sisters dream that a prophet is born to their family; even his proud parents can little suspect his spectacular destiny. No countryside farmers or loungers at the country store, no village gossips even surmise how much they could discuss, did they but have the power of prophetic vision. ‘They are naming him Joseph,’ it is reported. But no one knows, not even his proud parents at this time, that this infant and his father have been named in the scriptures for 3,500 years, named for and known to their ancestor, Joseph, the savior of Egypt and Israel. Not even his adoring mother realized, even in her most ambitious dreaming and her silent musings, that this one of her children, like his ancestor, will be the chief sheaf of grain to which all others will lean and the one star to which the son and moon and other stars will make obeisance. He will inspire hatred and ambition; he will build an empire and restore a church – the Church of Jesus Christ. Millions will follow him; monuments will be a built to him; poets will sing of him; authors will write libraries of books about him. No living soul can guess that this little pinkish infant will become the peer of Moses in spiritual power and greater than many prophets before him. He will talk with God, the Eternal...
Read More9th Day Christmas Past Winner and Answer
Answer 9th Day Christmas Past Re-cast: President Grant said that while he had never kept track of the number of books he had given away, he believed that the number would be just about one hundred thousand volumes. Congrats to 9th Day drawing winner, BONNIE COTTAM, who won a white Bethlehem baby blanket (made in Tel Aviv), Dead Sea lotion, and embroidered bag (Palestinian cultural design made by a Bedouin seamstress)- $65 value! Please contact MHA office 801-272-5601 or info@mormonheritage.com within 30 days to arrange for how to receive your prize. Story still available on yesterday’s...
Read More9th Day Christmas Past Re-cast Question & Story
On the 9th Day of Christmas Past Re-cast… Question: Today’s “Light the World” is to send words of love through books. How many books did Pres. Heber J. Grant give away especially at Christmas time? To be entered into today’s daily giveaway & FREE tour drawing- Read the story below; “Comment” & “Share” your answer on Facebook or our blog. Click Here for contest rules. PRESIDENT HEBER J. GRANT – Books, Books, Books! Heber J. Grant was ordained and set apart as the Church President on November 23, 1918. During the holiday season and on other occasions, President Grant habitually gave of his substance to buy books for numerous friends. He drew from a multiplicity of titles, sometimes buying out entire editions, four or five thousand copies, of a book he particularly liked. Handwritten messages in his own deft penmanship or preprinted inscriptions were all signed in person. Such works as William Jennings Bryan’s The Prince of Peace, Edgar A. Guest’s The Path to Home, Thomas Carlyle’s Martin Luther, David Starr Jordan’s The Strength of Being Clean, Henry Drummond’s The Greatest Thing in the World, and Orson FE Whitney’s Love and the Light were among those circulated. He had read each volume with care himself and underscored salient passages in his own copy. Illustrative of his exhaustive giving of books in the holiday season are his activities on Christmas Day, 1925: “Spent the morning until 11:00 AM at the hotel writing in books and signing slips…A lot of books arrived from Independence last night. Some of them should have been here at least ten days ago and I wrote in books until late last night and again this morning, also wrote in them this afternoon until about 300… Called and delivered a lot of books this evening. Gusta, [President Grant’s wife, Hulda Augusta Winters] was with me… presented to all the people on whom we called this afternoon and evening a copy of “The Prince of Peace.”…Have had a very strenuous day indeed but have thoroughly enjoyed the day in visiting with my daughters and granddaughters and friends.” President Grant enjoyed both an exceptional number of friends in the religious sphere and also in the greater business community. His diary chronicles the massive efforts of one man to make a difference in people’s lives: “Day spent with books. Books! Books! Had lunch at home today for the first time in several days. I am sending books to all the members of the Sunday School Union Board, Y.L. and Y.M.M.I.A., Primary, Relief Society boards, and to the directors of Grant & Co., Home Fire, Utah State National Bank, Zions Savings Bank, Utah Light & Power Co., Utah Light & Traction Co., Z.C.M.I., Utah Hotel, Salt Lake Theater, Consolidated Wagon & Machine Co., Beneficial Life Ins co., Union Pacific Railroad Co., and the Pacific Coast Joint Stock Land Bank to say nothing about personal friends. I am sorry to say that all...
Read More8th Day Christmas Past Re-cast Winner & Answer
Answer 8th Day Christmas Past Re-cast: 100,000 front-line men fighting during World War I participated in a Christmas Truce. Congrats to 8th Day drawing winner, Vicki Eccles, who won an Olive wood Nativity scene, set of Olive wood tree ornaments, and embroidered coin purse (Palestinian cultural design made by a Bedouin seamstress)- $70 value! Please contact MHA office 801-272-5601 or info@mormonheritage.com within 30 days to arrange for how to receive your prize. Story still available on yesterday’s...
Read More8th Day Christmas Past Question & Story
On the 8th Day of Christmas Past Re-cast… Question: Today’s “Light the World” is to show appreciation to health care workers fighting in the trenches of Covid. What amazing thing happened to a different front-line, during Christmas in the trenches of World War I? To be entered into today’s daily giveaway & FREE tour drawing- Read the story below; “Comment” & “Share” your answer on Facebook or our blog. Click Here for contest rules. President Spencer W. Kimball, before he ever became an apostle, related a Christmas story to Primary children about World War I. He said: “One Christmas during the World War, when no-man’s land between the trenches was white with snow, the troops in a certain ‘quiet sector’ began to exchange holiday greetings by means of crudely painted signs. A few minutes later, men who spoke German and men who spoke English were climbing from their trenches without guns and meeting on neutral ground to shake hands and exchange souvenirs, unmindful of war . . . Friends they were, not enemies, this Christmas day.” It was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1914 – over 100 years ago, thousands of soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front. In the hundred years since, the event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of peace just a few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives. Some two-thirds of troops — about 100,000 people — are believed to have participated in the legendary truce. “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” Christmas morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches. The truce was widespread but not universal. Evidence suggests that in many places firing continued — and in at least two a truce was attempted but soldiers attempting to fraternize were shot by opposing forces. Still, a century later, the truce has been remembered as a testament to the power of hope and humanity in a truly dark hour of history. Christmas, indeed, is the one time of the year when peace...
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