COTTONWOOD CREEK 3RD WARD 

Sacrament Meeting

December 21st, 2025

Presiding:  Bishop Jon Williams

Conducting: TBA

Organist: Sister Karen Holt  | Chorister:  Brother Keith Ritchie

Opening Hymn:  #201

"Joy to the World"

Invocation: TBA

Ward Business:  TBA

Sacrament Hymn:  #196

"Jesus, Once of Humble Birth"

Passing of the Sacrament

CHRISTMAS PROGRAM

"If I Were There"

Primary children

"O Come All Ye Faithful"  #202

 Congregation

"Still, Still, Still"

Ward Choir

Christmas Message

"What Child is This?"

Ward Choir

"Angels We Have Heard on High"  #203

Congregation

Closing Hymn:  #209

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"

Benediction: TBA

2nd Hour: Sunday School

Leadership Reorganization

For those who were unable to attend the sacrament meeting on Sunday (Dec 14th), our beloved bishop Jacob Heugly and his councelors, Nik Thomas and Jon Williams,  were released after 5 years of dedicated service.  They shall be missed but we are in good hands with the new bishopric called by the stake president.  The new bishopric is:

Bishop:  Jon Williams

1st Councilor:  Todd Musig

2nd Councilor:  Jeff Abbott

Cottonwood Creek Stake Single Adults 36 and Older

Mondays at 7:00 PM, there is a weekly Come, Follow Me discussion group for the Cottonwood Creek Stake Single Adults held at the home of Shelly Ashcroft - 1780 East Julho Street (big blue house on the corner of Paulista and Julho).  Come prepared to  share a personal insight or question from the week's assigned reading.

Scheduling the Building

To schedule the building, Bro Woodward had created a direct email for people to request building reservations rather than calling him (see his instructions below):

I now have an email set up specifically for scheduling the building.

cc3scheduling@gmail.com

 I’d like all further requests (from all ward and stake members) to be directed to this email only as it makes it easier for me to get all events scheduled as soon as possible.

For anyone who needs to schedule something, please include your name, contact info, the type of event (including what sections of the building are needed such as the gym or pavilion) and what day(s) and time(s) they need.

I will respond within 24-48 hours letting them know it’s been scheduled or if their time slot is occupied already.

English Language Classes

English as a second language (ESL) classes are being offered at the Stake Center every Thursday evening from 7:00 to 8:00  and all are welcome.  If you are interested or have questions, please contact Lisa Hill at 801-712-2910.

Please see the English Connect tab for more details.

Temple Recommend Interviews

New recommends or renewals of recommends expired more than 1 year

• Please schedule an interview with Bishop Heugly through  BrotherTodd Robinson. 

Renewals of active recommends or those expired 1 year or less

• Please schedule an interview with one of the counselors through Brother Tracy Fisher.

Cottonwood Creek 3rd Ward Plan

VISION:

To help ourselves and others become true followers of Jesus Christ, receive the blessings of the Holy Temple, have enduring joy and qualify for eternal life.

WARD SCRIPTURE:

"By small and simple things are great things brought to pass" Alma 37:6

PRIORITIES:

EVERY member LIVES the gospel of Jesus Christ

EVERY member GATHERS Israel through missionary work

EVERY member should CARE for the poor and needy.

EVERY member ENABLES the salvation for our kindred dead.

Full-time, Local Missionaries

The names change now and then, but the phone number stays the same: 

801-259-1129. Always here, always energetic, and always ready to serve!

Our missionary ADDRESSES:

Elder Jesse Bramwell

Arizona Tempe Mission

6001 S Lakeshore Dr

Tempe AZ 85283

Elder and Sister Christensen

Inner City Project

1294 E Siesta Dr

Cottonwood Heights, UT 84093

Elder and Sister Ellis

Inner City Project

7817 S Canterwood Lane

Sandy, UT 84093

Elder and Sister Hart

Church Service Missionaries (My Hometown Initiative)

North Granger,Utah

1691 E Madsen Ln

Sandy, UT 84093

Elder and Sister Haslam

Texas Fort Worth Mission

Drake on Summit

1424 Summit Avenue, Apt 4064

Fort Worth, TX 76102

Elder  Marcus Hill

Peru Trujillo Norte Mission

Marcus.hill@missionary.org

Elder Carter Hill

Cote D'Ivoire Abidjan East Mission

Hill.Carter@missionary.org 

Elder Preston Penovich

Church Service Missionary - Salt Lake City East mission 

1620 E Creek Road

Sandy UT 84093

Elder Zo Velluto  

Kentucky Louisville (Spanish speaking)

1325 Eastern Pkwy

Louisville, KY 40204

News from Elder Marcus Hill (12/1/2025)

Ya fue thanksgiving...

Whats up guys hope everyone has had an amazing week! Our week was filled. We had two last minute intercambios (exchanges). One with our DL's and the other with the ZL's. Each intercambio was notified the day of... But through the week I learned quite a bit!

Thanksgiving is not a thing here so thats whats up with the title. We didn't get to celebrate thanksgiving but we celebrated in our hearts.

Our exchanges we're lowkey tuff and I learned a lot more. Definitely helps me when we speak spanish all day hahaha!!!

We have two people on baptism date and I will keep you updated so stay tuned!!

Love you guys shout outs this week are

 - Elder Luke Morris (Happy B-day🎉✨️🎂)

 - Elder Walker Bear (started the mission last week!)

Love you guys and love your support! Talk to you next week!!

Chau!!

Check out photos of  Elder Hills Peruvian adventure here:  Photos 

News from Elder Carter Hill (two emails this week)

 Yaaaa fueee! (Shout-out to Marcus's title) (12-6-2025)

Hey guys, sorry it's been a week and a half. I had a temple trip today which moved out pday from Monday to today. But we here, and that's all that matters. This really has been a good week. Some miracles we've seen is we've been able to fix 9 baptismal dates!!! And plan on fixing at least 2 more. It's crazy... we're in one of the harder sectors too. So this week, waters been out for at least three days I believe now (and it still hasn't turned on.) OK, I think I'll continue with the spiritual thought now. 

Spiritual thought: today's spiritual thought comes from something I studied real hard a while ago. It's about grace and works. Like... what saves us? God already died for our sins, which means ones that we haven't committed yet. So, does that mean we're free to choose what we want? Well, let me explain

First off, we are all saved by grace. No matter what we do. There is only one sin that take away this gift, the sin against the holy ghost. Which basically leads to sons of perdition, but you don't need to worry about that one, because a lot is required to meet those standards. 

So, if we are all saved by grace? What is the point of our life here? Why has God given us commandments to follow if we are going to be saved no matter what we do?

 Because there's a difference between being saved, and being exhalted. And a pretty celestial one of you ask me.😉

Being saved means that we are all going to recieve our bodies once again because after we die, we go to the spirit world without them. So, up until the judgment (which we don't know when it happens for individuals in the spirit world) we live without physical bodies. In the wonderful book "miracle of Forgiveness", President Kimball talks about how there is something special about having bodies, that helps with our spiritual progression. So we all will be saved. I like to think of it like this example. 

If you have a little kid with a brand new toy car, and he loves this gift so much. Tragedy occurs and this child lost this amazingly thoughtful gift. Now there was a certain man walking by who found this car left at one of the parks he knew this kid lived to go to and returned it the the house of three kids. Here's the important part... in what condition do you think the little kid will want his little toy car in? It's already been saved as it is returned to him. But he'd want it in the best condition he left it right?

The same is true with our bodies. Just like this toy car, our bodies are one of the most wonderful gifts we have received. But we're not perfect, we make mistakes. We lose our gift through the actions of sin. There is nothing we can do to recover ourselves we're lost. But Jesus has come on and gave you the opportunity to reunite with your body again. Now I ask you again. In what condition do you want your body to be? Celestial? Terrestrial? Telestial? It's all up to you and your works. That is where works come in.  

What an amazing blessing we've been given to have a second chance to have that joy again. There's will always be that moment of anti-anxiety where we know we are lost, but the joy of the knowledge that we are not lost forever world give everyone hope and inspire them to live God's commandments. Because, who doesn't want to be happy forever? This is my testimony on this and it is sure. God's plan is for our joy. I want to share this quick thought I wrote in my journal. It comes from Bradly R. Wilcox in the "his grace is sufficient" BYU devotional. He says

"We are not earning heaven we are learning heaven, we are preparing for it. We're, practicing for it" 

Now it's the time to become like our savior Jesus christ. Out here on the mission, I've been able to see how effective being christ-like can be. If everyone was able to be more like Jesus christ, so many of the world's problems would be fixed. So, please love one another, and try to avaient contention add there a prophets who tells us something like, there is nothing that drives away the spirit away more quickly than that of contention

So please, during this season of Christmas, find people you can be kind to who maybe aren't the best to you and I promise you that you joy WILL INCREASE. I've seen it in my life. Lovecraft you guys and thanks for reading. 

If any of you would like, I'd love to hear from you guys. I don't have time to send emails or today, but I can always read them

Highlights:

-Thanksgiving was last week and we doubled our chicken usage for the night. 

- Luke had a birthday!!! 🥳🥳🥳 happy birthday!!!

- we've got a lot of friends who we've been teaching. 

- Christmas season is coming up. Even though I see basically nothing for Christmas, I'm always down to get into the Christmas spirit. 

Love you guys, thanks for all the emails you have sent in the past, I think I'll be responding to some emails next Monday so check up then, and see you later. 

- Elder Hill 🇨🇮

Christmas Baka (12-8-2025)

Howdy peeps!! Hope your week went well and full of Christmas stuff. Go enjoy it for me😢. I don't see any of it, there's only one store that has lights and a lot of toys but it's tiny. But hey, we take what we get. Especially since we've been bringing our own Christmas spirit through song. I've sung so much Christmas carols from the hymn book, and its great. The titles story comes from when we had a zone leader in a Baka (African bus) one the way back to our area. We three Americans in the bus (out of 4) were singing Christmas carols the whole way back. It was so hype. I loved it. 

Ok some fun stuff from 4 days ago

- we're currently cleaning a lot of our apartment which is amazing because it's super easy to get dirty with 4 elders.

- the Baka Christmas ride was another top

- just being with people to talk to, it's been really nice to talk to people during this last week. 

Spiritual thought: I hope to just testify today. I want to kind of restate what Elder Lorenzon said in his email (shout-out). I hope that during this season of Christmas, we can be grateful for tge things that we do have. Here, it's really easy for kids and just people to be unhappy with things they don't have. And yet, they're some of the happiest people I've ever seen, and they don't care about what other people think. The culture here is different to say the least. Like some kids will take the biggest hit from their momma and be running and giggling in less than 10 minutes. 

Gratitude is a christ-like attribute. Who did Jesus ALWAYS thank? His father in heaven. I've definitely seen it in my life, that a good attitude ALWAYS beats one that is self absolve. I've created a phrase that I think I'll be telling my kids when there growing up. And if goes like this. 

If you can't explain to me why your angry without using "I" or "Me", then I'll agree that your not being selfish. Because being ungrateful is selfish and self absolved. Jesus ALWAYS turned outward during moments of hardship instead of turning to himself and every injustice he faced. I love this gospel because it gives us the eyes to see the beauty of what happens when we serve others, even in the hardest of times. 

I always here that we receive blessing from that to, but I think that the best blessing that comes from service and gratitude is a half mind. So... CHOOSE to care less about yourself when you feel like you're victim of injusticeand turn to the service of othersand I PROMISE that you can be happy 😊 that's my testimony about gratitude. I know that this christ-like attribute leads many people to their true selves and beings not to not only them, but others as well. 

I love you guys, go enjoy Christmas for me (especially if you've got snow too enjoy it with). As always, please feel free to write to me, I always will love to see your emails. See ya later and have a Merry Christmas

- Elder Hill 🇨🇮 

Stake History Publication Now Available

We want to let the ward know that we still have several of these books available.  Please check with the bishopric or any of the clerks if you are interested in one for your library.

Sandy Utah Cottonwood Creek Stake 

Brothers and Sisters, 

We are excited to announce the publication and availability of “Worthy of Remembrance” a history of the Sandy Cottonwood Creek Stake 1978-2022. Sister Terri Packer, a member of our stake, has done an amazing job compiling and writing the history. 

The stake has subsidized the cost of publishing the history in an effort to make the book available to as many people as possible. The history contains spiritually uplifting experiences shared by members of our stake in their own words. It includes interesting information about the area, the history, and creation of our Stake. The book is beautiful, readable, inspiring, and full of many, many, photographs, which tell a history of their own. 

Copies are available now. Ward clerks have access to the books and can help with the process of purchasing the history. The cost of the book is $10. Each ward has received a small number of copies to provide to those wishing to purchase. More copies are available for wards to obtain. In addition, copies of the history will be placed in each of our meetinghouse libraries for those who would like to explore the book without purchase. 

Those who live outside of the stake and are interested in purchasing a copy may contact our stake executive secretary, Don McOmie, to coordinate receiving a copy. 

We hope that you will find the history to be as wonderful and inspiring as we have. It bears witness of the hand of the Lord at work in the Sandy Cottonwood Creek stake over many, many years. We highly recommend it to all. 

Warm Regards, 

The Stake Presidency