Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Hey, Merry Christmas here from followHIM. This is followHIM Favorites where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, it’s the Christmas episode on followHIM, and you have told me that you have a followHIM Favorite, a story.

John Bytheway:               00:17                   I do, Hank, and I got it from the December 2025 Liahona magazine. And it was really funny because I was reading it with my wife and the next day we met the author, it’s brother Gabe Reid, who’s in the Sunday School General Presidency and we didn’t know. I felt really cool saying, “Yeah, I read your thing yesterday.” This is what he said. This is quite the story. I grew up in American Samoa. As one of 13 siblings, all of us lived in a small three bedroom home in the village of, it looks like Leone, maybe it’s Leone, Leon. Christmas was always special for our family, a time to reflect on the birth and the atonement of Jesus Christ and a time to serve and give. One Christmas season after working hard and saving up, my parents bought each one of us a gift and placed them under the tree. We were so excited.

                                           01:04                   But before Christmas arrived, my older brother woke us up one morning with devastating news. Every single present had been stolen. Someone had broken in during the night and taken them all. From that heartbreaking experience, Brother Reid said, “A new tradition was born.” Every Christmas after that, we’d sleep around the Christmas tree to protect our gifts. As funny and as tragic as that memory is, it taught me more than to be cautious about Christmas gifts. It reminded me how important it is to safeguard and prioritize our covenant relationship with Heavenly Father. And then he said this, “Just as we protect our gifts or we protected them, we need to protect and prioritize our covenant relationship. Many of us face big decisions about school, dating, careers, missions. It’s easy to feel uncertain or inadequate. When I feel that way, I let my covenants guide me. ” What do your baptismal and temple of covenants say to do?

                                           02:06                   What blessings has God promised you? When you prioritize your covenant relationship, everything else begins to fall into place. President Nelson shared, and we’ve said this multiple times, “The joy we feel,” and joy is such a great Christmas word, “has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” Feeling the Savior’s love and joy is certainly the best Christmas gift we can receive. Can you imagine? Sleeping around the tree from then on became this tradition. We both talked about it. I called it rough start, great finish. You called it trial or blessing or both.

Hank Smith:                      02:46                   Yeah. That’s something so tough to have that all taken from you and then to turn it around and say, this is a new tradition in our family. We guard the tree.

John Bytheway:               02:57                   We guard the tree and then he decided we gotta guard our covenant relationship that way. We’re gonna surround each other and surround our relationship and to protect us. I love it.

Hank Smith:                      03:10                   I love it. Next time something goes wrong at Christmas, I might say, “Well, got a new tradition now.” Wow. That’s absolutely inspiring. I bet someone listening is going, “Oh, my Christmas is going bad. What could I do to make a tradition out of this?” I love it. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Sister Bonnie Cordon. This week, she’s out in Virginia serving as the president of a university there. She talks about Christmas. She tells a story about a gift her husband gave her that is just wonderful. It’s really just a tender, very vulnerable story. Then come back next week because it is time for a brand new year of followHIM Favorites.