Hands

How long does it take a tree to grow big, strong, and useful?

In Relief Society last Sunday, the first thing we were given was a piece of paper and asked if we would trace and cut out our hand. We discussed the second chapter in “Teachings of the Prophets, President Hinckley”. 

The teacher emphasized in the lesson how the church leaders had left their familiar countryside, and then came to an unfamiliar land that was a desert. She showed a picture from the lesson of the leadership on Ensign peak named because it had been seen in a vision.  Any help was thousands of miles away. They would have to rely on the Lord and themselves for hard work and inspiration on what to do. Each little step was to build up the kingdom of God. 

Living in the desert and building up the city and church did not happen in a few months. Small steps cause the big things happened over time.

After talking about the church beginnings for a minute, the teacher then emphasized how today we sometimes wear blinders and can’t see the big picture (or vision) in our daily life. We talked why it is important to see the big picture of where we are going/what we are doing. She asked for a discussion on what kind of blinders stop us from meeting our potential. There was a lot of discussion most of which I could get the gist. The lesson was in English the answers were mostly Tagalog with mixed English ideas thrown in.

Sisters going up to tape hands with commitments to the board.

The teacher asked each one of us to write down on the paper hand that we had, one commitment we would make this year to further the kingdom of God. When she turned the chalkboard around to the other side, there was a big tree with branches. She asked us to bring our hand up and tape it on the tree branches. It struck me in that visual of how important each hand is in the vast work of the Lord.