Teach the Children - Boyd K. Packer

Teach the Children - Boyd K. Packer


This the the story of the painting that hangs in my living room, 'The Bishops Plow' painted by Boyd K. Packer.    I absolutely love that painting and what it represents about the sacrifice people make when they serve!    It is so beautiful to me and captures the essence of service - and that it is not always convenient.     

“Years ago I served on a stake high council with Emery Wight. For 10 years Emery had served as bishop of rural Harper Ward. His wife, Lucille, became our stake Relief Society president.

“Lucille told me that one spring morning a neighbor called at her door and asked for Emery. She told him that he was out plowing. The neighbor then spoke with great concern. Earlier that morning he had passed the field and noticed Emery’s team of horses standing in a half-finished furrow with the reins draped over the plow. Emery was nowhere in sight. The neighbor thought nothing of it until much later when he passed the field again, and the team had not moved. He climbed the fence and crossed the field to the horses. Emery was nowhere to be found. He hurried to the house to check with Lucille.

“Lucille calmly replied, ‘Oh, don’t be alarmed. No doubt someone is in trouble and came to get the bishop.’

“The image of that team of horses standing for hours in the field symbolizes the dedication of the bishops in the Church and of the counselors who stand by their side. Every bishop and every counselor, figuratively speaking, leaves his team standing in an unfinished furrow when someone needs help.”³

Repent...That I May Heal You - Neil L. Anderson

Repent...That I May Heal You - Neil L. Anderson

This is the most touching example to me of how we will feel for our sins of omission.    I think of it whenever I see an old person with a heavy load.   It makes me want to rush to them and help them. 
I can relate to this.   I don't really think that I have too many huge sins, but I have loads of things like this that I could be better about and that I need to repent for.      This really got to me.

Sometimes we wonder why we remember our sins long after we have forsaken them. Why does the sadness for our mistakes at times continue following our repentance?

You will remember a tender story told by President James E. Faust. “As a small boy on the farm …, I remember my grandmother … cooking our delicious meals on a hot woodstove. When the wood box next to the stove became empty, Grandmother would silently pick up the box, go out to refill it from the pile of cedar wood outside, and bring the heavily laden box back into the house.”

President Faust’s voice then filled with emotion as he continued: “I was so insensitive … I sat there and let my beloved grandmother refill the kitchen wood box. I feel ashamed of myself and have regretted my [sin of] omission for all of my life. I hope someday to ask for her forgiveness.”²⁵

More than 65 years had passed. If President Faust still remembered and regretted not helping his grandmother after all those years, should we be surprised with some of the things we still remember and regret?

The scriptures do not say that we will forget our forsaken sins in mortality. Rather, they declare that the Lord will forget.²⁶