Welcome to the Jungle

Hello! 

So today I was told by my dear friends Elder Bruce and Elder Bensing that my emails are not funny enough *insert face palm. So today I bring to you a joke provided by your very own Elder Bensing.  "Why can't the T-Rex play the trumpet?".... "Because he's dead!!!!!" ....... ha....ha...ha. Maybe Elder Bruce will come up with a better one but until then let me tell you about my week. 

So today marks my 8-month mark of being a missionary. That's so crazy to me. I seriously still tell people that I just came out. Sister Robertson says I can't say that anymore. It kinda breaks my heart haha. Being a missionary is the best though and there is nowhere I would rather be. 

Let's get to this title shall we haha. So this week we got a call from a less active member who has a son that we have been trying to work with. She has really bad arthritis and so she asked if we could come over and help her with her "garden". We happily said we could come over and we scheduled 2 full hours to help her out.... 2 hours was not enough. The garden we found out had not been worked on all year and last year they had these tomato plants but they never picked them so all these tomatoes just fell to the ground and created more tomato plants. The little garden that she had contained weeds that went up to our chest and no barren soil at all. Everything was either a weed or a plant and it was our job to find out which was which. Yikes, it was hard work. We ended up going the next day as well with our favorite Elders in the district and finishing it, but man alive it was tough. 

The very next day I went on exchanges with Sister Wilcox. The very first house we went to this lady with beaming eyes said "Would you like to see my garden?". My initial thought was to run because after those two days I never wanted to see another garden in my life but alas we went... and I was blown away. She had row upon row of plants that were neatly organized and tucked into place. She had the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen. She had a watering system that just floored me and my faith in gardens was restored.

I asked her "how long does a garden like this take you to maintain? It seems like you would have to spend hours a day!" She responded that she spends 15 minutes daily and never misses a day. She said that she loved her garden and would never want anything to happen to it. 

Thinking about these two gardens this week, my mind was filled with all the ways it can relate to us and our testimonies. A lot of us have a desire to have a testimony, but just like a garden, a testimony takes work. We cannot forget about our testimonies for a year and expect them to be okay. We must work on them daily. The appreciation for our testimonies will grow as we work on them. Instead of it being something that we feel like we have an obligation to take care of, it will soon become something we want to take care of. Something that we want to show to people. Something that gives people hope in building up their own testimony. Something that is beautiful. Testimonies take work but the result is always amazing. 

I love you all and hope you have great weeks ahead. And as I promised here is a great meme given to you by Elder Bruce.