73. Yardwork, Hard Work, Smart Work
- L Rshaw
- Dec 22, 2019
- 13 min read
Updated: Apr 22, 2022
"Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds."
-- Gordon B. Hinckley (15th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; 1910 - 2008)
As is true with any missionaries, we were willing to try anything to visit with people more and to walk less beneath the summer sun. Reynosa was probably the hottest place in the mission during the summer as well, compared to the other cities I was in such as Matamoros, Valle Hermoso, and Rio Bravo (See previous post, "Canícula"). The irony in this story is that by hoping to cut down on work, we ended up causing more work for ourselves. Sometimes creativity has a great payout. Other times, it doesn't. At least it makes for a story.
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HARD WORK & SMART WORK
President Morales in one of his training meetings used an anecdote to get us thinking about how we went about missionary work. He told us of a few poor missionaries who developed feet problems as a result of walking most of the day every day. I don't know if they were in our mission or another, but he made a good point just the same --- an effective missionary doesn’t necessarily mean he or she covers a lot of ground. The smart missionary spends time with the people, wherever he or she is. Near or far. You don’t have to work yourself to the bone physically to get the job done and you don't always have to go great distances to find someone to teach; if you use your brain and plan well, you can yield equally if not more rewarding results. This is true in all walks of life.
There is a passage of scripture that was given to a group of missionaries in August of 1831, but the principle still applies:
But verily I say unto you, that it is not needful for this whole company of mine elders to be moving swiftly upon the waters, whilst the inhabitants on either side are perishing in unbelief. (D&C 61:3)
In other words, we don't need to rush to our destination when there are opportunities to help others along the way.
Smart work is not always the same as hard work. Smart work is getting something done in an efficient way. You can work hard but still not get something done, or maybe you do get it done but not in the best way. But when you work smart, you have a game plan and come properly prepared for the work. In my opinion, if you could only choose one, smart work trumps hard work, but ideally, we'd want a combination of the two to be the most successful. We want to be smart about how we approach a task, prepared and equipped for the work in order to be efficient, but we also want to work hard in order to make good use of time.
If ever a meme of President Morales were made it would have been a variation of tuxedo Winnie the Pooh. On multiple occasions, President would ask us to be smarter about the work, to use common sense more, or to think ahead. Outright citing Winnie the Pooh as the inspiration for his advice, he would gesture with his finger tapping his head asking us to envision Winnie the Pooh thinking about something really hard. He'd tap his head for a few solid seconds in pantomime, no words, just letting the action speak for itself. I guess it was effective because I never forgot it.
With encouragement to use our minds more, and to be more resourceful about how we went about missionary work, my companion, Elder Scott, and I decided we'd offer to give more service and show people how we practiced gospel living since most people weren’t looking to take time out of their busy day to listen to us tell them about our beliefs. I've said before that missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are much more than mere motivational speakers who regurgitate scripture, or simply make people feel good (See "More Than Good"). Missionaries are called to serve (See "Called to Serve"). As such, missionaries are encouraged to seek out service opportunities in the community while following the proper safety guidelines as put forth in the missionary handbook, now called "Missionary Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ". In addition to helping people, as Jesus would, lightening a person's busy load could have a secondary benefit, in other words, freeing up their time while creating a scenario where they were incentivized to have us stay with them as we taught them about the restored gospel. Sometimes we'd multitask teaching and serving which was always a win-win for everybody.
All in all, it was important to show people that we really did walk the walk as much as talk the talk. The gospel is more than just knowledge. It is FAITH IN ACTION! However, most of the time, the Mexican people would just look at us sweating and baking in our slacks, ties, and white cotton shirts then turn down our offer not wanting us to get any dirtier for their sake or genuinely not having anything for us to help them with. But on rare occasions, we would get to do something. Whether or not they accepted service, we followed up with an invitation to hear the gospel. At the end of the day, you just have to shoot your shot. Throw as many darts at the dartboard as you can.
YARDWORK
Elder Scott and I met an older woman and her adult son washing out the dirt and bugs from some picnic coolers in front of their house. Naturally, we went over to ask if we could help in some way. They didn’t accept help with the coolers but we got talking a bit about the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Looking for a reason to come back to talk more, I was sure that this old lady would need help with something, and we leaned in on our willingness to serve. One thing led to another and we signed up to come back early morning before the summer sun was high in the sky to help with some yard work. I say yard but really it was just a large plot of dry land behind her house with tall dry brush, rocks, and prickly weeds. As did happen from time to time, I really don't know how it happened that we agreed to help with the yard but we did. I have absolutely zero memory as to that arrangement which makes me think that maybe my companion sorted out the details, or maybe the heat and our desperation to set a return appointment before they retreated back into their home erased it from my conscience.
By this point, you should know that addresses in Mexico are all but unhelpful and the best way to find a place is by using landmarks or counting streets and turns. With only our paper map in hand, I don't know how we managed to find our way back to their home since we had to rely on a general sense of direction instead of GPS; for this reason, we may have rushed out the door early in the morning to account for any wrong turns (realizing now that this house was only about 3/4 of a mile northwest of us but it felt at least twice as far when you don't have GPS). You'll also recall that our only mode of transportation in the rural dirt street "suburbs" was walking. If I remember, we did indeed get turned around, meaning that it took longer than it would have otherwise, using only our intuition to guide us or that feeling you get when you've overshot it. Honestly, I'm amazed at how much we accomplished on foot with nothing but a roadmap for nearly two years.
The "yard" was roughly 35 feet by 45 feet in size. Although I won't say all of it was covered in weeds and rocks, the vast majority of it was. Maybe two-thirds if I had to estimate it.
We arrived early that morning dressed in casuals (meaning jeans) as promised with a garden hoe that a church member lent us to pry out the vegetation but the ground was so dry and rocky that the garden hoe was ineffective, to say the least. It was as effective as taking a shovel to a sidewalk.
Lawnmowers weren't an option, so far as I hadn't ever seen one in Mexico. Maybe lawnmowers weren’t used precisely because the ground was so rocky. Usually, they would have had machetes or weed-whackers to do any lawn maintenance, but most of the time the old machetes were blunt and rusty and wouldn’t cut well. And in my mind, having never actually used a machete anyways, I didn't think it would do much to get at the roots of the weeds. Ultimately, I doubt President Morales would have approved of us using machetes anyway for safety reasons. The woman had a weed-whacker but misplaced the extension cord needed to reach the yard and there was no known appliance store in our area, not that we really had money to buy her one.
With lost faith in our garden hoe (and any other garden tools we considered looking around for) but still determined to be true to our commitment and get the job done as quickly as possible and get on with the day, Elder Scott and I did the first thing that came to mind. In fact, I think it was my idea. Perhaps it was a foolish thing to do. A desperate thing to do. But at this point with over a year's experience in Mexico, I'd become a bit numb to all the hardships and inconveniences. A little yard work was certainly the least of my list of worries. By this point, I'd learned that you just have to make do with what you have in the circumstances. I'd learned that I was a lot stronger than I'd previously believed I was before Mexico. I did a lot of things in those two years that I never would have done had I not served my mission. It taught me good things. And it taught me what not to do.
We got down on our knees, swept our hands through the dry, and even prickly, tangled vegetation like how one combs fingers through hair, clasped the green overgrowth tightly, and tugged it out of the hard ground with our bare hands! It was as hard and as uncomfortable as you would imagine it to be. At first, I did it just to get a feel for how loose the weeds were but we uprooted a decent amount with each pull, more than we did with our tools. Never mind the plentiful thorns and microscopic thistles. Never mind the rope burns and blisters that developed. Nevermind the muscles we pulled in our swollen palms and the feeling of our tender knuckles and forearms as we clenched and pulled the weeds, leaning back with our entire weight to pry them out of the Earth. Seriously, the aching in our hands and arms felt like a sunburn. Or the building fatigue in our thighs which turned into trembling as we squatted, waddling our way across the large rocky lot like tractors, occasionally kneeling on the rocky prickly terrain, until we were about done, wasting away the whole morning as the unforgiving summer Canícula sun worked its way above our heads. Sure, we could stand and stretch a bit here and there but we didn't want to waste any more time than we had to. Hours of the day gone. No time for rest afterward. The only thought that kept me going was the thought of the woman we were helping counting on us.
The woman we were serving was kind and insisted we take breaks, gave us water, and made us a humble breakfast of scrambled eggs and black beans. By the look on her face, and her quiet demeanor, I could tell that she knew just how tired we were, as red in the face and out of breath as I'm sure we were. But we didn't want to complain for her sake. After all, she wasn't the one who insisted on us doing what we did. We volunteered for this! We assured her that we were glad to serve because that’s what Christ did and asks us to do. That's just part of being a missionary. She was grateful but I silently was questioning to what end we were laboring in the yard and if it was worth all the grueling time and energy.
A few hours later, just when we were almost finished and had accumulated a tall heap of weeds about five feet tall by two to three feet in diameter, her son pulls up out of nowhere with an extension cord! Without saying a word to us or even thanking us, or even acknowledging our presence, he nonchalantly plugs in the weed-whacker and starts touching up our hard work. What took him minutes to touch up took us needless hours of literal blood, sweat, and tears.
I was silently furious with myself! Wouldn't you be?! I felt as if I'd wasted a whole morning that could have been spent teaching! We didn't even get the satisfaction at the end of a job well done! I was sweaty and tired and still had the whole afternoon to get through. I was hot and dirty and just wanted to take a cold shower. My forearms and hands were flush and literally swollen stiff. A good attitude makes the work work, but to be honest, I felt like I had made a poor judgment. Obviously, there must have been some miscommunication, but for the life of me, I don't remember why we didn't know about the extension cord errand her son decided to make. You'd think she would have told us about it earlier. I must have asked about it later, but there must have been a language barrier somewhere down the line because she seemed to be under the impression that we knew he'd be showing up. I really have no clue how we were so oblivious to something so significant that would have been better for all parties involved.
After completing the task, we tried teaching her more about the Book of Mormon but we were tired and the spirit just wasn't there (See "A Still, Small Voice"). Looking back, I see a few errors on our part. The first was clear, as much as I'm slow to anger, I was agitated. Not angry, just upset. And it's hard to love and be upset simultaneously and have the love be conveyed. I didn't take it out on her, but I felt it internally. Secondly, it wasn't so much that we were tired or that we had wasted so much time but our other error was how we then further introduced her to the Book of Mormon. I remember everybody I ever taught who accepted the gospel and all of them made that change because they developed a testimony of the Book of Mormon as another true testament of Jesus Christ (See "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ"). After having already been on her property for a couple of hours, the lesson went on too long. It was too tedious and slow, and ultimately unproductive instead of to the point. Elder Scott and I overexplained what the Book of Mormon was and how it came to be; I guess because people usually had trouble grasping what makes the book unique. We got too caught up in the historicity, that I think the spiritual relevance went over her head. Instead of a religious discussion, it ended up feeling more like a book club. If I could go back, I would have read what the prophets of the Book of Mormon wrote about Jesus Christ in the middle, not just the Introduction page as we did with her. We should have read it together and let the spirit testify for itself. But because we over-explained the context, she got confused and lost interest in the content. Unless people ask for something else, I think a good rule of thumb is to keep things short and simple.
We tried coming back to visit but she never showed her face again. She sent her toddler granddaughter out one time on her behalf, claiming that she wasn't home or was occupied, to return the Book of Mormon we gave her but we insisted that they keep it just the same. My first feeling was of betrayal. After all we did for her, what I had hoped would blossom into a beautiful friendship, and suddenly without warning, she went into hiding, without so much as the courtesy to explain herself. We had messed up and I was devastated because I felt we had wasted the Lord’s time and ours. Did anything we do make a difference?
When I failed, well aware of all my inadequacies, the one thing I fell back on is the power of the Restoration. When I, the messenger, was unsuccessful, I'd still believe in the power of the word. I have a dream that every household with a Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ will eventually be drawn to its pages, like a magnet. It might not be the original recipient. Maybe a descendant will see it while rummaging through the boxes in the attic and be curious enough to open it. It's happened before. On the last page would be where I wrote our names, the two missionaries who never stopped hoping even though we were long gone and forgotten. We could be like Moroni, “Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing” (Mormon 8:35). Whenever possible, I believed that getting the Book of Mormon into people's hands would have some effect that would outlast me. And that goes the same with this old lady. No matter her feelings towards us at the end of the day, I still wanted the best for her. Her proximity to the truth was some victory, a seed sown while the soil takes more time to prepare.
I’m probably naive in my hope but I believe in miracles. Just because we didn’t always reap the fruits of sharing the gospel does not mean that one day another missionary won’t finish what we started. Speaking of yard work, we usually sow spiritual seeds more often than we harvest. I see no shame in that. Said Paul, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6). In other words, it doesn't matter so much who makes it happen so long as it does happen (See "Who Baptizes?"). Our timing is not always God's timing. And the glory is certainly not ours. And it's probably arrogant of me to believe that "if I'd just done this or that" that the person would have joined the Church. At the end of the day, while we do our best to teach the gospel by example, we're not responsible for anybody's testimony other than our own.
We weren't the missionaries to bring her to the Church but we served her just the same. I liked to think that although most people we met didn't join the Church, that at least we left a good impression on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our Lord whom we represented. A lot of people criticize the beliefs of Church members but what they cannot deny are acts of good. Being a force for good is something that continues to draw many to the truth, whether at a household scale or at a global scale. It is far easier to see the blessings of the gospel in action than having to read or hear it. That’s why it is said, “Share the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”.
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