Special Moments and True Christmas Spirit

I have spent the last few hours trying to decide what to write this week on the blog. Elder Williams' email this week was very short and too personal to share with the world.

I have decided instead to share a story about Elder Williams and Christmas spirit.

To start I need to give you a little background leading up to this "Christmas spirit"
Last year Kolton was given an opportunity to run cross country and track at college. He received several scholarship offers and ended up choosing TVCC in Ontario, Oregon. Ontario is about 5 hours away from Idaho Falls and it was very difficult for our family to have him so far away. We spent many hours driving to meets in different cities to watch him run his races. Many people thought we were crazy for investing so much time and money just to be able to spent an hour or two watching him run a race. Looking back now it was worth every trip we took and all the sleep deprivation.
While in Oregon Kolton was in a community that had very few LDS members. It was difficult for him to adjust to a life where the church was so small. The experience forced him to rely on the Lord and find his own testimony. The cross country team traveled many weekends so church could not always be attended. As a parent I worried about this many times, and found me being a pushy mom about religion for the first time ever. "Are you going to institute?" " Did you go to sacrament today?"....I am sure it became quite annoying.
Kelly and I got the chance to travel with his college team on the bus to Portland to NWACC'S. After 48 straight hours with his team it gave us a unique look at him and his testimony of the church. The difference between his college team and the high school team became very evident. One of the most amazing traditions his high school team did was to gather in a circle and pray before each meet. This tradition started back when Kolton was in high school and continues on today. Being at this meet with his college team was similar to the high school State meet. One difference was there was no prayer offered by the team. I knew at that moment Kolton had to pray on his own and find out if he really believed the teachings of the gospel. As the weekend went on many of the other team member kept teasing Kolton all because of his standards. I loved hearing this because I knew Kolton was living his standards, his testimony was growing and he was finding out what was important in life.
Soon after the weekend in Portland Kolton came home for Christmas and we could tell he had grown up and his life was changing. Instead of waking up Christmas morning and opening gifts, he gathered his two sisters and deiced they were going to let Kelly and I sleep in and make us breakfast. They worked like little elves in the kitchen trying to be so very quiet while making a very large breakfast. When our children woke us up they had made the most amazing breakfast of waffles, fruit, eggs, smoothies, and bacon. The breakfast was amazing and it totally changed the atmosphere of our home on Christmas. The focus of Christmas was on each other and not on the gifts under the tree. Even after we cleaned up breakfast we waited to open the gifts and enjoyed the feeling of peace in our home. I know everyone could feel the Christmas spirit in our home that day.
Our little boy was growing into a man and he realized these were the final glimpses of his childhood. He was beginning to recognize what was truly important in life.

As most parents know your children appreciate you more as they get older and the reward for all the hard work has payed off in sometimes just small moments.