This week we’ve been enjoying some of the bounty from my garden harvest--i.e. roasted butternut squash, Anasazi bean soup, the last of my heirloom pineapple tomatoes, banana squash soup, granny apple pie (gluten-free for my needs and apples from a local orchard-- I didn’t grow those). Its our pre-Thanksgiving time with my mother-in-law and a nice way to enter into the month of Thanksgiving. AND without pollinators in my garden, there would be no harvest of this deliciousness!
My thoughts come from Elder Ballard’s talk “Be Anxiously Engaged” from this past October General Conference.
I. Elder Ballard recalls:
“My beloved brothers and sisters, each time I enjoy a fresh, vine-ripened tomato or eat a juicy peach right off the tree, my thoughts go back 60 years to when my father owned a small peach orchard in Holladay, Utah. He kept beehives there to pollinate the peach blossoms that would eventually grow into very large, delicious peaches.
“Father loved his gentle honeybees and marveled at the way thousands of them working together transformed the nectar gathered from his peach blossoms into sweet, golden honey—one of nature’s most beneficial foods. In fact, nutritionists tell us it is one of the foods that includes all the substances—enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water—necessary to sustain life.”
My father always tried to involve me in his work with his hives, but I was very happy to let him tend to his bees. However, since those days, I have learned more about the highly organized beehive—a colony of about 60,000 bees.
Honeybees are driven to pollinate, gather nectar, and condense the nectar into honey. It is their magnificent obsession imprinted into their genetic makeup by our Creator. It is estimated that to produce just one pound (0.45 kg) of honey, the average hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must collectively visit millions of flowers and travel the equivalent of two times around the world. Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.
Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.”
So, my figuring out how to quantify 1/12 of a teaspoon--I was filling a teaspoon with various household items like sunflower seeds and such and found that 1/12 of a teaspoon is about 1 chlorella/ spirulina tablet which is about the size of 1 redhot candy from the cake decorations area in your supermarket. And 1 lb of honey is little over honey filling a ½ pint jar.
II. Beehive as a symbol
“The beehive has always been an important symbol in our Church history," said Elder Ballard. Check out the various references in Elder Ballard's talk-- the Jaredites (Ether 2:3), Brigham Young choosing the beehive as a symbol for the pioneers, the insides and exteriors of some temples and even the Conference Center podium is adorned with the beehive.
Elder Ballard continues, "All of this symbolism attests to one fact: great things are brought about and burdens are lightened through the efforts of many hands 'anxiously engaged in a good cause'” (D&C 58:27). Imagine what the millions of Latter-day Saints could accomplish in the world if we functioned like a beehive in our focused, concentrated commitment to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ."
III. Savior’s Teaching/ Pure Religion and application:
Elder Ballard's draws attention to the following:
The Savior taught that the first and great commandment is:
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37, 39–40).
"The Savior’s words are simple, yet their meaning is profound and deeply significant. We are to love God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us—our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens," says Elder Ballard. And he also said, "As the Epistle of James notes, service is the very definition of pure religion (see James 1:27).
IV. So, HOW DO WE BEAR ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS IN OUR EVERYDAY LIVES?
Elder Ballard said the following:
“We read of the service Church members provide around the world and especially the humanitarian service given in times of crisis—fires and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes. These much-needed and much-appreciated emergency responses should certainly continue as a way of bearing one another’s burdens. But what about our everyday lives? What would be the cumulative effect of millions of small, compassionate acts performed daily by us because of our heartfelt Christian love for others? Over time this would have a transformative effect upon all of our Heavenly Father’s children through the extension of His love to them through us. Our troubled world needs this love of Christ today more than ever, and it will need it even more in the years ahead."
V. MY THOUGHTS:
This is very pertinent to now with hurricane Sandy in the East hitting right here on our home soil. And what can we do on a day to day basis? There is power in a smile. A kind word/ greeting has made my day on many an occasion. A laugh/ exchange of humor has changed my attitude for a day and lightened my outlook. And What about visiting teaching? -- While living in South Africa, I didn’t know how to help. We were living there for 6 months-- I knew it was enough time to be involved and get to know the sisters in the branch. There were real safety issues as racial tensions existed and probably still exist-- we lived there 12 years post-apartheid. Another factor was that I wasn‘t totally comfortable driving on the other side of the road at the time-- later I got really comfortable but I was not comfortable with it at that time. AND I had been told not to go into the nearby township by Joe’s boss. I didn’t know how I could get involved, but when the RS President picked me up in her car and told me we were going to the township for visiting teaching, I felt no safety concerns. We had a nice time serving. I needed to be shown the route and helped to serve in that time and place. I was later able to serve on my own but I had to be shown a way.
Elder Ballard says, "These simple, daily acts of service may not seem like much in and of themselves, but when considered collectively they become just like the one-twelfth teaspoon of honey contributed by a single bee to the hive. There is power in our love for God and for His children, and when that love is tangibly manifest in millions of acts of Christian kindness, it will sweeten and nourish the world with the life-sustaining nectar of faith, hope, and charity."
VI. “?What do we need to do to become like the dedicated honeybees and have that dedication become part of our nature?”
1. Desire. Remember Christ is central. Know he is the path to eternal life-- a basic principle in most Christian religions.
2. Take on Christlike attributes and assimilate His doctrines. I loved Sister Burton's talk from this past October General Conference, "First Observe then Serve.” She said, "Observing and then serving is not always convenient and doesn't always fit our own timetable.” She further stated, “Sometimes we are tempted to serve in a way that we want to serve and not necessarily in the way that is needed at the the moment. When Elder Robert D. Hales taught the principle of provident living, he shared the example of buying a gift for his wife. She asked, “Are you buying this for me or for you?” If we adapt that question to ourselves as we serve and ask, “Am I doing this for the Savior, or am I doing this for me?”
3. Pray for the desire to serve and then pray to be able to serve someone during your day. Elder Ballard said, "...In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children. Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for someone to help. Stay focused, just like the honeybees focus on the flowers from which to gather nectar and pollen. If you do this, your spiritual sensitivities will be enlarged and you will discover opportunities to serve that you never before realized were possible. President Thomas S. Monson has taught that in many instances Heavenly Father answers another person’s prayers through us—through you and me—through our kind words and deeds, through our simple acts of service and love. And President Spencer W. Kimball said: “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 82).
So, may we all be like bees. I know we are busy like bees. May we desire to serve and increase our efforts with our 1/12th of a teaspoon contribution to the hive just like the honeybees. It will bless all of our lives-- the recipient of service and the giver of service.
Hugs and love, Sister Christy Huffaker-Bernat
