This Saturday morning my little family made its way to our local meetinghouse -- it was our turn to help clean the church. We'd kind of debated since receiving the notice whether I should go alone, or whether we should bring everyone along. In the end, Michelle thought there was at least a chance she could be helpful, at least moreso than if she stayed home with the kids.
There were several families there to help. The coordinator assigned to us the cleaning of the windows and doors around the building -- the idea being that Jared could help with that. It didn't take much longer than two minutes, though, for things to fall apart. Emily instantly had a messy diaper. Jared kept putting his hands back on the windows and doors (leaving marks that had to be cleaned again), and then he started unraveling the paper towel roll with reckless abandon. My attempts to correct him only made him more defiant, and within moments there I was, in the church, trying to put my son in a full nelson* to get him to stop make a bigger mess than what we'd been sent to clean up.
My instant reaction was to wonder if we were doing anyone any good at all by showing up, since it wasn't clear whether we'd ever finish those windows.
But then I remembered this story, told by Elder Eyring about his father, and my success or failure in getting to those windows didn't seem quite so important:
"I want to tell you a story about waiting upon the Lord. My father once told it to me with the intention of chuckling at himself. It's a story about his tryin to do his duty, just the way you try to do your duty.
"Now, you have to know a little bit about my father. His name was Henry Eyring, like mine. His work in chemistry was substantial enough to bring him many honors, but he was still a member of a ward of the Church with his duty to do. To appreciate this story, you have to realize that it occurred when he was nearly eighty and had bone cancer. He had bone cancer so badly in his hips that he could hardly move. The pain was great.
"Dad was the senior high councilor in his stake, and he had the responsibility for the welfare farm. An assignment was given to weed a field of onions, so Dad assigned himself to go work on the farm. He never told me how hard it was, but I have met several people who were with him that day. I talked to one of them on the phone, and he said that he was weeding in the row next to Dad through much of the day. He told me the same thing that others who were there that day told me. He said that the pain was so great that Dad was pulling himself along on his stomach with his elbows. He couldn't kneel. The pain was too great for him to kneel. Everyone who talked to me about that day has remarked how Dad smiled and laughed and talked happily with them as they worked in that field of onions.
"Now, this is the joke Dad told me on himself afterward. He said he was there at the end of the day. After all the work was finished and the onions were all weeded, someone said to him, "Henry, good heavens! Youd didn't pull those weeds, did you? Thos weeds were sprayed two days ago, and they were going to die anyway."
"Dad just roared. He thought that was the funniest thing. He thought it was a great joke on himself. He had worked through the day in the wrong weeds. They had been sprayed and would have died anyway."
"When Dad told me this story, I knew how tough it was. So I asked him, 'Dad, how could you make a joke out of that? How could you take it so pleasantly?' He said soemthign to me that I will never forget, and I hope you won't. He said, 'Hal, I wasn't there for the weeds.'"
Well, Elder Eyring, I didn't forget, and indeed it made the work more pleasant. And even if it hadn't, Jared and I got some donuts afterward that made it all worthwhile. Hopefully none of you with ever forget that.
*No, not really.
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