Hopiland Christmas

By Bob Lonsberry

Author: ?+ Bob Lonsberry Description:

All around the world, faithful servants of the Lord eagerly put their lives on hold to share the gospel. These missionaries diligently work toward satisfying the command to preach the gospel, but sometimes, cultural boundaries make certain groups seem off-limits. Sadly, many missionaries overlook these cultures, fearing that their efforts would only be fruitless.

In Hopiland Christmas, radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry details the work of two Latter-day Saint missionaries as they explore the traditions of an ancient culture and preach the gospel on the Hopi reservation in Arizona. As the elders reach out to the Hopi people, they learn to step outside convention and bring a Christmas message into a world that has never known the power and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The young missionaries learn what it takes to sacrifice their comfort in order to breach social boundaries and help to bring all people back into Heavenly Father's loving arms.

Hopiland Christmas is a warm reminder of the fruits of missionary work, and people everywhere will find inspiration in its message of faith and courage, and the author of true liberty - the Lord Jesus Christ.

Product Details: Format: Paperback Print: Black & White Size: 5x7 Page Count: 69 ISBN: 9781599550695 Imprint: CFI Books Publishing Office Use: 1J317

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1599550695
• ISBN13: 9781599550695
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Cedar Fort
• Length: 69 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

There is faith in every syllable.

The philosopher Aristotle observed that poets--nowadays what we call storytellers--are more important that historians. Historians are limed by the hard facts of what happened. But storytellers have the advantage. They deal with the universals, and implicitly, with the possibilities of human existence. (The Philosophy of Aristotle (Signet Classics)) So Bob got it right. He caught the universals of missionary service. The good, the bad, the light, the dark, the ridiculous, and the sublime are all here in this book. It is not so much a "slice of life" as it is "slices of lives." For those of us who served missions, we recognize the broken-down trailer, the junk room with old missionary equipment, the watering trees, and the misfit members in your tiny branch (or twig, as the case may be). What surprised me the most was Bob inserting himself as a narrator into the story. This is a plus. Lonsberry has a homespun, Andy Griffith-type voice, and it adds to the tone of the story. The book reads less like a missionary pamphlet, and more like a fireside chat. In some way, this book is a marked improvement over God's Army. The conflict in the films is forced--even staged--and overwhelms the spiritual aspects of the story. "If ye are not one, ye are not mine." Bob's missionaries are almost twins, which explain why they are so successful. I had a companion that was so robotic that he was oblivious to an out of control car that was speeding towards us. The comparison between Lonsberry and Dutcher is not off-base. Both have had their wild sides and struggle with the Church of Jesus Christ. But somehow Bob found his way home. And it shows in the book. There is faith in every syllable. It reminds me of the discussion between Sam and Frodo as they are in the magic forest Lothlórien: "It's wonderfully quiet here. [said Sam] Nothing seems to be going on, and nobody seems to want it to. If there's any magic about, it's right down deep, where I can't lay my hands on it, in a manner of speaking." "'You can see and feel it everywhere,' said Frodo." (The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the RIngs) The Mirror of Galadriel). The action is commonplace missionary work, but Lonsberry stylizes it so that you can see between the cracks of humanity, and view the divine within the commonplace. God is in the details of missionary work.