Getting Rid of the Weeds

Yesterday I was gardening with my family. I moved from the garden around the pool, to the "middle garden" (it's a long garden in the middle of our yard with our peach and apple trees, watermelon, melon, pepper, and raspberry plants). I was given charge to weed there because it hadn't been weeded in a while. So I went over ad started to inspect the areas that needed the most love (we had a time limit). I found that within the area where the watermelons are planted, there were lots of weeds that looked suspiciously like the poison sumac I learned about at Young Women's camp. I went and grabbed my gloves and started pulling all of that out first. These weeds didn't have big root systems but trying to pull those out instead of the watermelons was hard because they were growing so close together. 

As I was weeding I thought about how the sacrament and repentance is very much like weeding. We try and not commit the same sins over and over, and the sacrament washes us clean like baptism. However, sometimes we need extra help with weeding. Sometimes we have weeds that have massive root systems and are hard to pull out. Sometimes we have a poisonous plant growing all over our garden. It is then that we need extra help. The poisonous plants could be compared to sins as serious as sexual sins. It's not impossible to take out, but we can't do it ourselves. With the help of our bishops, we are able to gain a better understanding of grace and how to use it.

I bear my testimony to you that I know that by grace we are saved after all we can do. I know that repentance is real and possible. We can overcome sin! It's not impossible! I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.