When my son Ben was in preschool, he typed a legible Christmas wish list on the computer. He said he could make the letters into the words, but couldn’t make letters with a pencil yet. But the year he turned seven, no list was forthcoming. When I asked him if he had made a list, he said that our family has a lot more than some other families, so he was trying to not want things. And he never asked for birthday or Christmas gifts again.

When he was a few years older, he saved money to buy a Playstation. As Christmas neared, I asked him whether he had enough yet, thinking a game for it might be a good birthday or Christmas gift. He said he had enough, but had decided he didn’t really need the game system and was putting the money in his mission fund.

I told Leann Weekes about his choice, knowing that she loved him from Primary and would appreciate hearing it. A few days later she knocked on our door with a big smile, a wrapped box, and a story.

She had shared Ben’s decision with the missionaries who came to her house for dinner. One of those young men had felt unable to stop playing video games to serve his mission, and when he left home he brought a small Playstation with a built-in screen hidden in his luggage. After a few months of his mission, he committed to stop playing and packed the system away. But he didn’t want to send it home and disappoint his family, so he had been moving the box with each transfer and feeling bad about it.

He happily gave the system to Leeann to deliver to a boy he didn’t know, feeling that the sacrifice was worth it to obey mission rules. Ben opened a box on Christmas morning that contained a much nicer system than he would have been able to buy and that he played for years, because he was willing to sacrifice what he wanted for what he felt was right. Two young men learned about obedience and sacrifice that Christmas. It still seems like a little miracle to me.

~Nita Smith