The Day After Christmas

Christmas is wrapping up, gifts are unwrapped, but what we get under the Christmas tree is not what Christmas is about. Spending time with homeless people, I've been given basically everything they have to possibly give. Whether that be chocolates, or flowers, or even a thank you, people have given to me out of their extreme poverty. It reminds me of The Widow's Offering: Mark 12:41 - 44 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” My heart's warmed by the giving nature of the homeless man who picked these flowers for strangers, and made my day by telling my friends and I that our smiles were like Jesus. He encourages us to try to brighten someone's day, like he had for me. Please remember: "Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values."- Thomas S. Monson