Dirty Work

The ravages of several earthquakes

I needed to clear out the storage area beneath my apartment on Saturday.  I hadn't been in there for about 10 years, and hadn't realized that those boxes I had once put away so neatly and carefully covered with plastic, had been flung all over the place by a few jolts of Mother Nature and then further scattered about by a number of wild critters.  (It had been home to at least one furry creature for a while.)

It was a mess.

We could barely get the door open!

As I began going through these boxes, it hit me how many teaching materials there were.  One box contained manuals and books for the ESL (English as a Second Language) classes I had taught.

Another box was full of Relief Society and Sunday School manuals.  There were notes and pictures and other paraphernalia accumulated during a life spent teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was like seeing the documentation of an interesting and fulfilling life well lived (well, so far, so good!). It was like one of God's tender mercies in the midst of the stress of having to move this stuff.  That was a good feeling.

I was able to toss a great deal of stuff and organize some of the rest.

Through this process, I don't know what I would have done without the help of my home teacher, Darryl and his wife Karin.  It took a couple of hours of hard, filthy work, but with their help, I was able to get everything sorted out.

Karin and Darryl

I should stress the fact that most of the hardest work was theirs.  Filthy, tired, sunburned and disheveled, we went out for burgers afterwards and had some good laughs.

God bless good friends.