Christmas Mission

I was planning my lesson and I felt guided to this film. It was excellent acting and very realistic for the teens. Through this movie I felt inspired to plant the seed for all of my 23 seminary students to consider serving a mission. That our classroom could then be a mini MTC. We are studying the Book of Mormon this year and so I thought and prayed about whether this could be a film I could use in the classroom. Unfortunately, as much as I liked the overall message and quality of production, there were a minimum of a half dozen mission rules being broken. The spirit constrained me from using this. Boo:-(. Just to name a few, the missionary sneaking in--which is a big deal, lying about where he found the money given to the kid, using their first names-- which I didn't even realize was a rule etc. I know they are not perfect, and I am a big fan of the spirit of the law rather than the letter, but my testimony grew on the importance of why these rules exist. My kids desire to do things the right way and seeing this as a missionary example would be confusing, but it is a great family flick. I also see the importance of using church supported material.

We watch this every Christmas inviting many families to our home. Surprisingly unknown even in LDS circles. The acting is well done by most of the leads, and some of them may be seen in other productions. The film never fails to touch at the end during the baptism scene.

Christmas is about Christ and this movie portrays this very well. I liked it, because it showed a missionary that worked with the deaf or hearing impaired. My sister was called and served on an ASL mission and so this struck close to home. Very touching movie!