Gardening Joys

I was the kid who complained about weeding, gardening, planting, working. I hated being outdoors; I'd rather have my nose in a book and forget all about the yard.

Luckily, we change. This week, a ward member gave me and my companions the wonderful opportunity to work in her yard. It was freedom. There is something therapeutic in hard work. Elder F. David Stanely is very blunt about the importance of work:  

We are what we are as a people because our ancestors were not afraid of honest, hard work. Our forefathers understood the necessity of it; sheer survival demanded it. A common ingredient among all successful people is an understanding of what constitutes paying the price of success . . . Hard work is a blessing of God (The Principle of Work).

Success has a price, and work is a blessing. However, the blessings we get aren't always what we'd thought. I found my joy yesterday by telling my companion a story while we worked. I will admit it, I'm a bit of a dork; however, I love storytelling. Just being able to share stories with others brings me joy. When people want to listen, I'm ecstatic.

These two things may seem unrelated: storytelling and work. Yet I related them when I realized that this is what work does: it creates stories in our lives. What are scriptures? They are the stories of God's prophets as they labored to bring people (and us, the modern day reader) to Christ. What are family histories? Stories of our ancestors that can teach us how to live. 

Stories are our most powerful teaching tools. We can throw facts at each other all day, but people rarely apply them until they learn them--and we learn by experience, whether it be ours or others. So go to work. Write your stories.