Being Bugged

Aloha from Wiesbaden!

Here is the parable for the week:

So we had some amazing lemonade at a member appointment the other week. It was freshly squeezed lemon juice, water, sugar, and finely chopped peppermint. In fact, we liked it so much that we bought a peppermint plant so that we could make it ourselves. After a couple of days, I noticed that it had a few bugs on the leaves. I ignored it. (if the bugs don't bite me and don't infest what I usually eat, and there aren't like a bjillion of them, I don't care) After a few more days, we moved the peppermint plant into another room, so that it wouldn't infest our Basil plant.

Fast forward a couple of weeks...I dared to check on the plant and it was COVERED in little green bugs, like horror movie covered. Now I cared. :)

My reaction was:

Oh, well, good-bye plant. It's been nice knowing you, you were only $1.50. Thanks for everything, Tschüss.

On the other hand, Sister Eschenmann wanted to use tape and "tape" all of the bugs off of the plant, like cat hair with a lint roller. I was skeptical, but it worked like a charm.

So there she was, saving an innocent life, and I started to feel pretty doof. I mean, I always knew that I didn't have much of a green thumb, but at that moment I felt like a plant killer.

And then I thought about it.

If my inital reaction was to chuck the plant when it got infested, what have I done in other more important situations that were similar?

What have been the bug-infested peppermint plants of your life?

I think sometimes when hard things come along, it is easy to get stuck seeing the things that bug us. hehe

Walking 20 min in the rain to meet with the Ward Mission Leader

But I think that it is always so important to remember that change is possible. I felt like I had broken the plant, and rather than fix it, I felt like it would be easier to just start over. I think that can happen with projects, goals, dreams, people, relationships, and ourselves.

Three things come to mind from that.

1) Gratitude is really the fastest way to gain perspective.

2) Service builds trust, and it is through trust that we can really begin to love.

3) Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, change is a real thing. No one needs or deserves to be "chucked" because despite the overwhelming weakness of each of us, we all have something to offer and something to give, and something to become. We need to believe that!

Walking 20 minutes uphill in the sun when the buses aren't running to meet with a dear old man in a rest home

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Sister Roderer