Have you watched the Church’s Christmas film The Christ Child, yet? Somehow, I missed it last year when (I think) it first came out. I watched it a few days ago, though, and loved it. It gets the “feel” just right, in my judgment, including its use of original-language dialogue. To my surprise, unemotional Scandinavian that I am and understated though it is, I found it very moving. (Perhaps I found it so moving precisely because it’s understated, not attempting to sentimentalize or manipulate.) It runs just slightly less than eighteen minutes in length, and I recommend it to you as strongly as I’m able:
The Christ Child: A Nativity Story
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The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued its annual Christmas message for this year back on 27 November 2020. You can read it here, if you haven’t done so already:
“First Presidency Releases 2020 Christmas Message”
I enjoyed this Christmas concert from Temple Square on Sunday night:
“Christmas on Temple Square Kicks off With Virtual Concert and Tour of the Lights”
I have admit that, as a certified (or certifiable) language nut, I particularly enjoyed hearing various Church leaders read from the Nativity story in Luke 2 in various languages. Elder Gerrit W. Gong and Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, for example, read in Mandarin and Portuguese, respectively, and Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé read in French. Young Men General President Steven J. Lund read in Dutch, Elder Michael T. Ringwood of the Seventy in Korean, and Sister Sharon Eubank, first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, in Finnish. Other General Authorities and general officers participated.
This year’s First Presidency Christmas devotional will be held on Sunday evening at 6 PM, Utah time. For details and information on how to watch it, see here:
“2020 First Presidency Christmas Devotional”
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Some of you might enjoy this short piece, from the indispensable and seemingly indefatigable Jeff Lindsay:
“Four Types of Chiasmus in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, with Implications for the Book of Mormon”
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Here are some of the latest items to have appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:
- John S. Thompson has just published a seasonally appropriate piece on our blog entitled “Barren Women, the Christmas Story, and the Promise of Seed in Both Time and Eternity”
- The latest preview of a forthcoming publication by Drs. Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack — fourth and last in a series of such previews — has just appeared on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation: “Pre-print of Revisions in the Analysis of Archaic Expressions in the Book of Mormon”
- Interpreter Radio Show — November 15, 2020 The hosts for the 15 November 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show were Bruce Webster and Kris Frederickson. In this episode, they discussed Gospel literacy, Christmas, and Charles Dickens. The first portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #50 (Christmas). That broadcast is now archived and is available for your convenience and listening pleasure at no charge. Happily, too, the coordinator of our radio broadcasts, Martin Tanner, has now persuaded KTKK to forego the station’s own advertising during our shows altogether, so we can proceed without interruption.
- Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 48: “May Christ Lift Thee Up”: Moroni 7-9 The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 48, “May Christ Lift Thee Up,” on Moroni chapters 7-9, involved Neal and Jasmine Rappleye, Spencer Marsh, and Hales Swift. This roundtable was extracted from the 1 November 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-november-1-2020.
- Jonn Claybaugh has generously provided a brief note in support of Gospel Doctrine students and teachers with Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 48, December 7-13: Moroni 7-9 — “May Christ Lift Thee Up”
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It’s been a while since I’ve shared any materials from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File, so here are a couple of items that you might find worthwhile:
“Church Leaders Raise Hunger Awareness in Virtual Walks” (This one features Sister Sharon Eubank, who has written for Interpreter.)
“Latter-day Saint Charities Provides Grants to US Refugee Agencies”
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Finally, I share a few brief notes on certain fundraising efforts by the Interpreter Foundation:
Just in case you’re unaware of it, my year-end Facebook fundraiser for the Interpreter Foundation is now up. You can find it at
https://www.facebook.com/daniel.peterson.3701
Alternatively, if you want to give but would prefer to give through my wife — neither of us, by the way, will derive so much as a penny from this effort — you can find her fundraiser at
https://www.facebook.com/deborah.peterson.900
And please don’t forget that you can enlist Amazon.com to donate Amazon’s money (not yours!) to the Interpreter Foundation (or to some other cause of your choice).
Please note that, although we do pay for some services, the Interpreter Foundation has no regular salaried employees. The Foundation’s board of directors, for example, are authorized by our by-laws to draw up to $500 each per year in compensation, but none has ever taken even the tiniest fraction of that money. My wife and I are actually donors. We have, for instance — not to boast, but merely to illustrate my point — already donated through this year’s Giving Tuesday program, just as we’ve done in prior years (and just as we’ve donated in other ways on multiple occasions). I don’t want anybody to imagine that donations made to Interpreter will go toward feathering our own nests.
Signing up with AmazonSmile is especially important right now, at this time of the year. More and more people are doing their holiday shopping online — especially in these days of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you shop on Amazon.com, please consider doing so through AmazonSmile, which works just the same way and offers precisely the same products at exactly the same prices. There is absolutely no reason not sign up with AmazonSmile. It’s simple to do, and it will cost you absolutely nothing. Even if you do, the Interpreter Foundation won’t derive a huge windfall from it — Amazon donates just a half of one percent of what you spend — but, to coin a phrase, every little bit helps. And there is no reason at all not to do it. But it should be done soon, while your Christmas shopping is still ahead of you.
“How to use Amazon Smile to Make Donations”
“Donate to Interpreter via AmazonSmile Purchases”
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