11/24/14

Palm Trees are Evil

Yes that's what I said palm trees are evil. So I guess there's a bit
of a story with that. This last Tuesday went to a sisters house and
did a bunch of service we trimmed palm trees for like three hours. And
you wouldn't know unless you can punctures before that they are
actually very spiky. One of them hit me in the calf muscle it went
through my jeans and stuck a good three eights of an inch or so into
my calf. It kind of feel like getting a shot. And it was sore
afterwards to like I got a shot for a few days. I was pretty and
several other places. Elder Smith even pound in one of them in the
wall to hang up his calendar. He even used a hammer to do it they are
freaking tough stuff. So yes, palm trees are evil.
So there is this totally awesome zone conference we had this last week
and we talked about the Christmas initiative that is taking place. Way
cool. The church has made a huge push and they've made another holiday
video like that "Because of Him" video. They made a website for it and
the church is going to be the only advertising on YouTube for all of
December 7th, for the whole day. So, I'm pretty much pumped about
that.
So we are doing some more service this week and we were helping a
sister with her car. It's a minivan and the door hasn't been sliding
right on it and it even fell off and they couldn't hardly get it
closed. So we got it back on and got it closed and told her that she
couldn't open it because it would fall off again. So of course one of
her children decide to open up the next day and it fell off and so we
got called back over there to put it back on. So this time we decided
that we had to come up with some way to fix it so that it wouldn't
just fall back off because the rollers on the door weren't even there.
So we decided to have some fun. We had to think of someway that we
could make these posts a little bit bigger around so that it wouldn't
fall off so easy. We were looking at it and we decided that a pen tube
would probably fit about right. So we asked the sister that if she had
any cheap pens around. She brought us one, we took it apart, we put
the pen tube on the post and cut it off. Proceeded to put it back
together and guess what? It totally works! So that was pretty awesome.
We went back today and put it together right with the replacement
parts she ordered. Always good to get a chance to work on cars again.
As we come right up to thanksgiving everyone is remembering to be
grateful. Or at least remembering to say that they are grateful. I
read the parable of the talents the other day and it got me thinking.
We are told that at the end the one who still only had one got it
taken away and given to he one who had ten talents. Christ then
proceeds to say "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he
shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away
even that which he hath." Matthew 25:29 There are multiple reasons why
this is the case. The one that I want to focus more on though is how
it relates to being grateful. Being grateful has an action. That
action is simply using the thing that you are grateful for. Showing
that appreciation. So when we have things and we use them and show
appreciation for them then we shall be given more. But if we are not
grateful for the things that we have then shall it be taken away from
us, even that which we hath. Be grateful, and show it. Not just say
it. Make it an action.

Hurrah for Israel!
Elder Dane Olsen