My dear friend and neighbor, Katie, and her husband cared for Katie’s mother for many years. Her mother struggled with dementia and sometimes that care was very difficult to give. Katie’s mother grew up in Ogden, Utah in a proud Scottish family that danced and performed the Highland Fling and the Scottish sword dances at cultural celebrations. It was part of her childhood. The Christmas just before her mother’s death, they bundled her up in a wheelchair and took her to see the lights display in Ogden. As they wheeled her through the lights, they came to a man playing the bagpipes and stopped to listen for a few minutes. As they listened, Katie noticed her mother’s feet begin to move.
She wasn’t just tapping her feet. Her toes were pointed, her feet moved in precise movements and continued throughout the song. She couldn’t remember Katie’s name or their relationship, but something deep inside of her remembered what she had learned in her youth and came back to her when nothing else would.
President Joseph F. Smith taught, “Jesus had not finished His work when His body was slain, neither did He finish it after His resurrection from the dead; although He had accomplished the purpose for which He then came to the earth, He had not fulfilled all His work. And when will He? Not until He has redeemed and saved every son and daughter of our father Adam that have been or ever will be born upon this earth to the end of time, except the sons of perdition. That is His mission.” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Joseph F. Smith, 410)
Our Savior, whose birth we celebrate, was sent to save His Father’s children. He waits with patience and mercy we do not comprehend for us to remember who we are and Whose we are and what we were intended to be. He calls for us to be better, to forgive, to learn, to change, to try again and to remember how much our Heavenly Parents love and believe in us. The veil over our minds may allow us to forget many things, but we can never fully forget the love of our First Estate and its imprint on our souls. As our hearts turn, then in His time and through His atoning power, He “glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of His hands.” (D&C 76:43)