This is what my winter break is looking like:

• Tomorrow my family is driving to Danville, Illinois to visit my cousin, who is the senior pastor of a Church of Christ there. We’ll return Monday evening. I’ll take my notebook but no guarantees on having Internet access.
• I am getting a head start on my readings for next semester’s classes, working through China’s Christian Millions (2006) by Tony Lambert for my History of Christianity in China course. I’m also finishing up Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical (2009) by Hannah Faith Notess (editor) as well as finally catching up on Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (2007) by Richard L. Bushman, both for pleasure.
• From Monday, January 4 through Friday, January 8, I have what’s called a J-term modular class. It meets every day of that week from 8 AM – 4:30 PM and the topic is “Christianities in Colonized North America.” In other words, I’m cramming three graduate credit hours into a single week of the break. The course is being taught by Yale Divinity School’s Kenneth Minkema and if you look at the syllabus, you’ll notice that there’s a section on early Mormonism. I was pleased to note that the syllabus says, “Each student will read and report on one of [Joseph] Smith’s Revelations from this period, connecting it to Mormon Christian belief and practice” (emphasis mine). See? We don’t all call you filthy, unwashed cultists. Anyways, there’s significant reading preparation for that class, so I’ll be working on that as well.
• I have to submit a rough draft of a thesis proposal to my Church History Colloquium class on Wednesday, January 13, so that I can present it and have it critiqued by the professors and other students on the first day of class on Wednesday, January 20. I’m still pretty uncertain of what to do my thesis on; I’m thinking an evangelical Protestant reception history of early Mormonism would be fascinating, but I haven’t narrowed the topic down more than that. The goal is to have a solid thesis proposal by the end of Spring Term in May.

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and Advent season. We just survived our first ever Christmas as a family on our own, away from our in-laws. My favorite moment happened this morning when my daughter was opening her presents. She had already opened a few Thomas the Tank Engine wooden rail trains and was really excited about those. I handed her another present to open and she looked at me and said (in her garbled English), “Is it another train?” She had so much excitement and joy in her eyes. I just smiled at her and said, “Yes, it’s another train! Now open it!”

Made me wonder if God ever gives us good gifts just because He loves to see our joy and excitement.

Merry Christmas!

My daughter with her new trains