Work!
"From the beginning, the Lord commanded Adam to till the earth and have dominion over the beasts of the field, to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. I have always been interested in how often the scriptures have admonished us to cease to be idle and to be productive in all of our labors...Teaching children the joy of honest labor is one of the greatest of all gifts you can bestow upon them." -Elder L. Tom Perry
I am so close to my family, I love and cherish each of them so much. I am the fifth child of ten children. There are 6 girls and 4 boys. We were raised by our biological parents my Mom and Dad. I have heard people often comment that they want small families so they can be very close to each other, and have better relationships. I want to say from my own experience that you can have a large or small family and be closely knit together as one. Those who work to have a family that is united in love can achieve this, it is possible with the help of the Lord. I love my family dearly. We have created bonds that are unbreakable. The hardship's we have faced are minuscule in comparison to the joy we have experienced as a family. The joy did not come because life was easy, in fact it was through hard work that we obtained this unspeakable Joy. And that is precisely what I want to talk about today.
The word "Work" is sometimes looked down upon. In fact we buy many of our everyday appliances just so we can avoid doing more work. But isn't that why we came to earth? Ever since the beginnning the Lord told Adam and Eve to work; the Lord stated, "the earth will be cursed for thy sake." Interesting how it was for their sake. Learning to work hard together as a family is a form of Godliness, and brings great joy. To reach Celestial Glory requires hard work and dilegence. I am going to share a few experiences in my life where work has been a blessing to my family and I.
Farm Life:
"Work is so fun!"- my Mom stated as my siblings and I woke up at the break of dawn to face another day of physical labor. I grew up on a farm in Washington. We grew alfalfa, corn, wheat, grass fields, and other various crops. We also raised Angus cows, chickens, horses, and my Dad own's a dairy. And we have cats (we have so many it looks like were raising them.) Every morning us kids changed pipes and wheel lines, and fed baby calves around 5:00am-6:00am each morning before school; the school bus usually came at 7:15am. There was much work to do, and we had the privilege of doing it.
There were many experiences that brought my siblings and I very close. In fact almost all the fun, happy memories I have occurred while we were working together as a family. Here are a few...
Garden:
Early in the mornings my parents would get us up to weed the garden. Well sometimes we would put off weeding the garden, and soon the weeds would be as tall as we were. It basically became a forest. We would all go out there and start pulling weeds by hand or with hoes, and it felt like it would take forever but actually went pretty quick when we all worked together. As we worked side by side we would have deep conversations with our parents, we would laugh, joke, and purposely throw dirt clod's at each other. We learned to have fun while we were working.
Tractor Experience:
My Dad had Mathew (my brother) and I hook up the tractor to a weed chopper. We were told to cut down all the weeds around the entire field. So we got started! I drove in front of Mathew with the four-wheeler and I would motion with my hands (he could not hear my voice because he was inside the tractor) where the big rocks were so he would not hit any. I got pretty skilled at hand motioning. Well as we came down a vibrant green weedy slope I noticed a small stream bed so I motioned for him to not go to the right. He misinterrpreted my hand motion, and the tractor and my brother fell into the stream bed. He told me later he thought I was motioning to go to the right. I was nervous for my brother, and I was shaking a bit. My brother was fine, but the tractor looked a little sideways in fact it was almost completely on its side (it was a huge tractor). I was like, "Math should we call Dad?" And we thought for a second and decided we better not. We didn't want Dad to see the tractor in this destructive state. So we decided to try to get it out on our own. I remember being so nervous for my brother, I did not want him to fall out of the tractor and get squished. So before he got in my brother and I said a small prayer to our Heavenly Father asking us for protection, and guidance to know how to get it out of the stream bed without my brother dying in the process. Well a miracle occurred and it popped right out of the stream bed. To us it was an answer to prayer. Just as we got the tractor out of the hole my Dad drove up, and asked us what was going on. So we explained, and he helped us get it back to the house. Now this experience of working with my brother allowed us to have a bonding experience. We were working together to accomplish a task. We made a mistake, and chose to turn to the Lord. As we took a step of faith we saw our prayer answered. Work can really bring people together. When we work together in our families we come to love and care about one another, and we learn to communicate.
Wheel Line:
We had to roll wheel lines that were really long, one or two people could not do it alone, we needed around 7 of us or more if we all could. We would all get on a wheel and roll it at the same time. It required us to work together. Usually wheel lines have motors that move them automatically, we did not. As I spoke with my parents recently they told me they could have afforded a motor all along. I was surprised, and then they said that they wanted to provide an opportunity for us to work, and learn to do it together. Sometimes we need to purposely provide work for our children. I am forever grateful that they did not buy a motor, but instead allowed us to grow together in unity and love.
Folding Laundry:
With six girls in our family oftentimes our bedroom floor was non-existent with the amount of clothes we had thrown everywhere. My Mother would gather us together and we would begin to clean. This of course led us to make it fun, and we would have clothes wars, and would have a type of pillow fight...but with clothes. It became a time of laughter, and joy even though it was hard work.
Service:
My parents would take us with them when they would visit the elderly, or when they saw an opportunity to serve they gathered us up to go serve. Once our garbage man dropped a bunch of garbage on the road, and it was a huge mess. My Mother and Father saw this and told us to go get our shovels and get in the van. We shoveled off all this garbage off the road and my Dad took it away in the tractor. It brought Joy to our hearts.
Some Other Things that can bring families together:
-Service
-Working together
-Family Scripture Study
-Family prayer
-Family Council
-Wholesome Recreational activities
-Going to church together
I know that as we strive to provide opportunities for our families to work together, that the blessings will be poured down upon us. I know that the Lord wants us to work side by side in our families. His work and His glory is to bring about the immortality and Eternal life of man.
Application: Find something simple you can do with a family member or roommate that requires you to work together, or serve together. Reflect on how this affected your relationship with that person.
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