“Dear Bishop Gardner and Sister Thomas,

  “I just got home from school. Ricky walked in first and said, ‘What in the ... ?!’ Then I saw what he just saw. Food ... Food! Food all over the place! Boxes, bags, cans, and even cartons of milk and eggs! Ricky said, ‘Look! There must be a million oranges!'

  “We wanted to thank you, Sister Thomas, and the whole Church (especially our ward) for all the help you're giving us right now, especially all this nice food donated from the bishops' storehouse. It's such a wonderful feeling to feel so loved, so cared for, and thought about.

  “Gratefully.” (And he signed his full name.)

  Then it was Christmas Eve. My own family of young children and teenagers were just finishing our annual Christmas pageant—complete with scriptures, carols, costumes, a real-live baby playing the part of the Christ child, a three-year-old Mary, a six-year-old Joseph, an angel, a shepherd, and a wise man. (I always somehow end up with the role of the donkey.)

  There was a knock at the door. It was Santa Claus! In living color! He ho-ho-hoed himself into the living room, made a big fuss over each child, reached into his enormous sack, and pulled out a gift for each member of the family. As he did so, I noticed a vague resemblance between Santa and a member of our ward.

  Then he wished us all a Merry Christmas and was off. Two of the youngest children were determined to see the reindeer for themselves, and they raced out to the front porch. But Santa must have parked his sleigh down the street somewhere. We watched and listened to his sleigh bells jingle as he trotted merrily through the neighborhood and disappeared into the snowy darkness.

  What a Christmas it was—my first Christ-mastime as bishop! How could I ever express my gratitude for the many ward members who had made it a joyful time of giving and receiving—and for all who carry that spirit with them throughout the year?

  And how could I ever express my gratitude and love for the Savior, Jesus Christ, who had set the pattern and had given the greatest gift of all?

  Certainly, my nine-year-old friend is right: “It's such a wonderful feeling to feel so loved, so cared for, and thought about.”

  THE GIFT

  Emma Lou Thayne

  When I think of Christ mas and Christmas gifts, I sometimes think of a story I first heard at a Sunday gathering of friends in Provo Canyon, a story I wept over when I first heard it, a story I hope never to forget.

  On the morning of that gathering, late September had flamed on the mountainsides, and Timpa no gos was already holding snow against the purple-blue sky. About fifty of us were gathered on the flat outside the girls' camp where we'd been since Friday. Sacrament meeting in such a setting! When it was time for scripture sharing, a unique privilege afforded by such gatherings, Jan Cook stood to tell our rapt group the story.

  She and her husband were for three years in Africa, in “deepest Africa.” His work had taken them and their three small children there, and any meetings attended were in their own living room with only themselves as participants. By their third Christmas, Jan was very homesick. She confessed this to a good friend, a Mennonite; Jan told her how she missed her own people, their traditions, even snow. Her friend sympathized and invited her to go with her in a month to the Christmas services being held in the only Protestant church in the area, saying that there would be a reunion there of all the Mennonite missionaries on the continent.

  It took some talking for Jan to persuade her husband, but there they were, being swept genially to the front of the small chapel. It felt good, sharing Christmas in a church again. The minister gave a valuable sermon on Christ; the congregation sang familiar carols with great vitality. Then, at the very end of the meeting, a choir of Mennonite missionaries from all over Africa rose from their benches and made their way to stand just in front of Jan and her family. Without a word, they began singing. Without a leader, without music, without text, they sang “Come, Come Ye Saints.” Every verse.

  Disbelieving, totally taken by surprise, Jan and her husband drenched the fronts of their Sunday best as their spirits were carried home for Christmas. “Imagine,” Jan said to us, “hearing ‘All is well, all is well,’ clear over there—All is well.” When they were finished, Jan's friend said simply, “For you. Our gift.”

  Jan's Mennonite friend had sent to Salt Lake City for the music to the hymn that she knew Jan loved, had had it duplicated and distributed to every Mennonite missionary in Africa; they in turn had learned it very carefully to bring the spirit of Christ to their own reunion where foreigners to their faith would be waiting to hear.

  The gift? Pure. Without strings. Without stint. Simply a gift, to strangers.

  It is my wish that everyone could receive the same gift that Jan gave us that morning in Provo Canyon, the one she had brought from somewhere in Africa, the gift of her acceptance, of feeling touched by love, of being part of some human connection that transcends sect and self-concern. I hope never to hear from a sad-eyed anyone, anywhere in my Mormon milieu, “I just couldn't feel accepted.” Instead I hope we can ask of ourselves and of the strangers we meet, “What gifts might you and I have to share?”

  GIOVANNI'S GIFTS

  Fra Giovanni

  There is nothing I can give you

  which you have not got; but there is much, very much,

  that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

  No heaven can come to us unless our hearts

  find rest in it today. Take heaven!

  No peace lies in the future which is not hidden

  in this present little instant. Take peace!

  The gloom of this world is but a shadow.

  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy!

  There is radiance and glory in the darkness

  could we but see, and to see, we have only to look.

  I beseech you to look.

  Life is so generous a giver, but we,

  judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as

  ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering,

  and you will find beneath it a living splendor,

  woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

  Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the Angel's hand

  that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial,

  a sorrow, or a duty; believe me, that Angel's hand is there,

  and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.

  Our joys, too: be not content with them as joys.

  They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning

  and of purpose, that you will find earth

  but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it:

  that is all! But courage you have;

  and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together,

  winding, through unknown country, home.

  And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you.

  Not quite as the world sends greetings,

  but with profound esteem, and with a prayer

  that for you, now and forever,

  the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

  A TAHITIAN CHRISTMAS

  Donald R. Marshall

  All it takes is that first scent of a plump green lime being sliced or the juicy taste of a ripe mango, its sensuous fruit a rich reddish-orange. Even a whiff of jasmine or fran-gipani perfume can bring it all back—especially when I can conjure up in my memory and mix with it the headier scent of strips of coconut oozing oil in the noonday sun. The sultry spiciness of it all is inevitably borne by humid evening breezes across the lagoon and out to sea, signalling that the islands are near, even before the first faint, jagged outline becomes visible, jutting up like a pale and hazy emerald on the horizon.

  Any one of these luscious appeals to the senses—whether coconut, jasmine, mango, or lime—can instantly transport me back to Tahiti.

  There were times when, in Tahiti as a missionary in the 1950s, a certain image or sound or smell would momentarily take me back to America, where after watching Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron at the drive-in movie, we would go for milkshakes and cheeseburgers, served by car-hops on roller skates, while Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and the Four Aces sang to us from the juke box.

  Especially at Christmastime, my memories frequently meandered back to the United States. With no snow and nothing much resembling an actual Christmas tree, even a Tahitian version of “Silent Night” would set me longing for New England church spires and sleighbells jingling down snowy country lanes.

  Now, almost half a century later, the memories are working the other way. A decorated tin box of assorted cookies I glimpsed in ZCMI caught me off guard and sent me reeling back forty-three years to a rambling old house, its corrugated roof and dilapidated veranda overlooking the lagoon on the island of Raiatea.

  We had done our best to give the place some kind of festive holiday touch. It was, after all, not only where we lived, but also where our straggling little branch would be meeting that Christmas Sunday as they had every other Sunday since missionaries established themselves on the island. We had no Christmas lights to string along the big porch outside and no pine boughs or holly wreaths or even a fireplace mantel to arrange them on.

  We had found a scrawny three-foot tree, and though it was actually a flimsy little semi-tropical bush with exotic green leaves, rather than a pine or blue spruce, we had strung it with red and green star and bell cut-outs we had made. It may have seemed only a token effort, but we felt we had done the best we could, given our limited resources on this little palm-covered island in the heart of Polynesia.

  On the afternoon of the day before Christmas, we were tidying up our house for Sunday's services when we heard the familiar clankity-clack of a bicycle in need of repair. We glanced up at each other with the look that meant, “sounds like old Mimi.” A glance through the big glassless window, its flap-like covering propped open by a long pole, told us we were right.

  Mimi Oaoa was a large—not fat, just large— Polynesian man of about fifty, whose frail little Chinese wife, Mimi Vahine, faithfully scrubbed, ironed, and folded every piece of clothing brought to her each Saturday by the missionaries. Mimi himself had held a number of odd jobs, most recently loading and unloading the different cargo ships that regularly docked at Raiatea's smelly wharf. Due to a freak accident that had caused several heavy crates to fall on him and crush one of his legs, Mimi's dock activities—as well as work of almost any kind—had become drastically limited. The big man, now left with a severe limp, mainly got around with a cane or by riding, somewhat clumsily, the rattling and creaking family bicycle, usually with one or two of his barefoot children balanced on the handlebars or on the back.

  Mimi and his wispy little wife had ten children—all of whom were still young and at home— from the fifteen-year-old Flora, who wanted to learn English and become a school teacher, to a little boy barely two years old. Today none of the Oaoa children accompanied Mimi on the bike. He had pedaled there by himself along the three- or four-mile road between his little house and our big rambling one.

  Mimi was at present our branch president. He was a dear man, soft-spoken, kind, and well-meaning, if not as schooled in the gospel and in matters of leadership as one might have hoped. Nevertheless, he was the best we had at that point and had come a long way once the mantle of leadership had been placed on his shoulders. He did, however, have one vice, and though it didn't show itself often, it had cropped up a time or two since he had been set apart as leader of the branch: Mimi drank.

  It went back to his teenage years, before he became a member of the Church. It had also been a part of his life during the first years of his marriage. Since joining the Church, Mimi had suffered only a few occasional lapses. Some of them were fairly recent, due perhaps to the pain he felt in his leg, to the depression brought on by his disablement, or perhaps to the feeling of camaraderie brought on whenever he lingered at the wharf in the evening with his co-workers and former drinking companions.

  Because there was always much re morse,

  followed by tearful repentance, this sweet, soft-spoken man inevitably won our hearts with his promises and renewed resolutions, and we, in turn, had always decided to give him yet another chance. I'm not sure why we were a little nervous about Mimi's surprise visit that afternoon. It probably had something to do with the upcoming holiday and our worries about the temptations Mimi might face if he were to run into any of his old buddies planning—or even having—a Christmas celebration at the docks.

  There seemed to be no hint of liquor on the man's breath, no guilt-filled confessions, no promises and resolutions, and not even any requests for our extra prayers on his behalf. There was one request: could we possibly give him a little money—just a few dollars—so that he might buy a few simple presents for his family?

  “Eiaha te tahi mau mea rahi roa,” he told us. Not a lot of things; just something for the children—especially the little ones.

  My companion murmured something to me about the chance of Mimi's taking the money and getting drunk with it. I think I mumbled something back about the seeming impossibility of helping him buy presents, even if his motives were perfectly pure, when there were other families in our branch in similar predicaments. How could we help one household without helping the others?

  “We're really sorry, Mimi,” we finally told him after a few more questions to him and a few more mumbled comments in English to each other. We certainly wanted to help him, we said, but it just wouldn't be possible.

  He nodded his head quietly, but still didn't leave immediately. He had one more request: “Na reira ïa. Tera râ, hoê mea toe: e nehenehe anei ia'u ia tarahu hoê pereoo, ia nehenehe i to'u utua-fare e haere mai i te pureraa ananahae, hoê taime, hoê tere?” Would it be possible then for him to hire a truck-taxi to bring all twelve of them—him, Mimi Vahine, and the ten children—to church on Christmas morning, therefore arriving all at once, instead of one starting two or three hours early, with two or more on the old bicycle, then riding back alone to pick up another load, and so on, until all twelve of them were there?

  The repeated request for a few dollars made us both a little nervous—and suspicious. Though we talked about Mimi's particular problem of living so far down the road, having such a large family, and owning only one bicycle, we again felt that it was not something we could do for one family without offering the same assistance to everyone else in our little branch. It hurt to tell him no, but it seemed the right thing to do.

  “We're sorry,” we told him, “but we just can't.”

  I'll never forget his sigh and his sad and resigned whisper, “Na reira ia.” Then so be it.

  We felt terrible as we watched him awkwardly get on the old bicycle and ride it off down the long dusty road. We eased our consciences by saying something like, “Now the poor guy probably will take whatever money he has and go get drunk.”

  The next morning, hardly before we had time to get ourselves ready, grab a bite of cooked wheat cereal, and get the narrow little cots we slept on made up to serve as additional benches for our Christmas services, the Oaoa children had begun to arrive. Colette and Florence came first—our favorites, at nine and ten years old. Their older sister, eleven-year-old Olivette, left on the bicycle to go back and bring another load.

  We were still just cleaning up our cereal bowls and spoons from the little table out on our veranda when Colette and Florence, bright-eyed and scrubbed, their dark hair neatly braided, came and stood by our table.

  “Joyeux Noël,” they said in French, beaming, with their hands behind their backs.

  Did we dare bring it up or not? One of us did: “Well, did you have a good Christmas?” we asked in Tahitian.

  “Yes,” they said again, their eyes still sparkling. Papa Noel, they told us, had not forgotten them. They then brought their hands from behind their backs, one girl holding a small tin box of assorted cookies, and the other, an imported package of Ritz crackers.

  “This is what we got,” they said excitedly.

  We nodded and smiled, faking enthusiasm for their new possessions left by Papa Noel.

  “But Florence and I have decided,” Collette went on, brightly, “and we want you missionaries to have our gifts.”

  I have relived that moment many times—that moment and those moments the day before— when Mimi Oaoa came with his lame leg and his squeaking bicycle and visited us. Most of the time, I try to forget both of those moments, but it never works.

  We kept the cookies. We had to because of the startled looks on the girls' faces when we tried to protest. We shared them as best we could with the whole branch. Whatever was left, I have a hunch, we never finished.

  I think often of Tahiti and of that little island of Raiatea. Just the smell of a lime will take me back there. Or the taste of a mango, or the smell of jasmine.

  Or the sight and smell and taste of a box of cookies.

  CHRISTMAS GIVING

  Elder Gene R. Cook

  The word Christmas might be divided into two words. Those who understand Spanish as well as English know that with a mixture of Spanish and English, Christmas could mean “more Christ.” To me, the perfect Christmas would be more of Christ and less of many of the other things we tend to associate with the season.

  Most of us spend a lot of time in the weeks before Christmas moving through many stores, looking for presents. What do we see? A lot of things that make people happy, especially children, right? I have seen automatic trains, small cars, rifles, pistols, dolls, all kinds of toys and expensive games. I have seen microwave ovens, automatic dishwashers, televisions, radios, VCRs, even satellite dishes—a little of everything—and I ask, are these real gifts? We can easily get lost in all this and lose the real meaning of Christmas, pressured to buy something tangible and give it to someone else. Such buying, done in the right spirit, is part of Christmas, but I want to talk about something deeper.

  When I think about Christmas as a Latter-day Saint, I turn to the scriptures with this question in mind: “What would Jesus Christ do?” What would he give if he were here today? If he taught one thing more than anything else, it was to give, give, give, and give, even as he gave his own life. Try thinking of Christ and Christmas as you consider these passages of scripture that emphasize the word give: