Dear Family:
It was so fun to be a part of the
annual Christmas Pageant on Sunday afternoon with all of you. We were absolutely amazed at how organized
and how well you all of you did. We love
you so much. All of you are so great. We
have so many great memories of being all together on Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day with our family for the last 45 years. We spent part of the Christmas holiday
together in Twin Falls in December 1967, when I wanted to ask Grandpa Babbel if
I could marry mom. She wasn’t ready for
that discussion until a little later in the program.
We remember the years when our only gifts
were from the DI and all of the great DI Christmases since then. We especially remember the Christmas we got the
piano and the Christmas at the Cabin with diamond rings. Today, we spent all day helping some
“Christmas Families” in need. You kids
have helped carry on that tradition that Grandpa Babbel began with Gary and
Candy when they were 10 or 11.
We just
sent the missionaries home after doing the Christmas story from the Bible. They each had to play 2 or 3 parts and they
were almost as hard to keep focused as all of you kids were when you were
young. We love to read and remember the
Bible story of his birth and life. We
know more assuredly that He lives and that he set the perfect selfless example
for all of us to follow. We are blessed
to understand (in small part) the divine plan of happiness. We are happy because of Him. We take for granted the blessing of being
born in America and that we had so many selfless, inspired men and women who
laid the groundwork of our free country and opened the door for the restoration
of the Gospel. This means so much to us as we serve here in Croatia and see the
struggles these people have endured over the last 400+ years (about the same
time the Ivins family first arrived in the New World). They have had many wars even since the late
1800's when the Babbels came to America.
For the most part, our ancestors have been spared the horrors of
war. We are so grateful for our
ancestors who joined the church and came to Zion (America) one at a time
leaving family and friends behind.
Looking back we can see clearly how the pieces of the puzzle have come
together through the good choices our ancestors made, including our own parents
and grandparents who met and married and multiplied and replenished the earth
so we (mom and dad) could meet and marry and start our own new nation. Of the many choices we have made, the best
and most important choice was our decision to marry and to start a family and
bring you into the world. We are so
grateful for the choices you have made to marry each other and raise such remarkable families. Thank you for doing your part to help our family progress
toward perfection and ultimately realize our divine destiny as one big happy
eternal family.
As you know, having days like this
help us know that “We’re richer than Bill Gagen!” per Grandpa Babbel. We
know that you have had some fear and trepidation and a few problems that help
us remember that we must live by faith. But most of all you have taught
us that you have been able to do hard things. Through it all we have
learned that "The Greatest Blessing in our Lives, Before, Now and Forever,
is to Love and Be Loved. The Greatest Ingredient of that Blessing is
Unselfishness.” So with this we come back to the Christmas message. Our
Heavenly Father and Jesus are the perfect examples of that simple recipe for
happiness. They love us--unselfishly. They are happy when we love
each other, The Lord and ourselves. We know that. The key is for us
to keep loving—unselfishly. As we keep this one commandment, to love one
another, we will remain in Their Love. Our favorite scriptures of the week
are John 14 and 15. We thank you for being here on earth at this time.
We thank you for your choices and know that you and your children and
grandchildren have been and will be reserved to come to the earth “for such a
time as this”. We love you. We thank you and we are proud of you
and we congratulate you and wish you the very best Christmas ever and the very
best and Happy New Year.
Love Mutti and Bumpa
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