Called to the Work: "I Never Said Anything About Banana Nut Bread" November 27th 2017

One of the Sisters in our ward was driving us down to San Antonio and we were talking about some of the church's new initiatives and she told us a story.

There was a woman in the church who was the Relief Society President and a busy mom. She heard of a woman in her ward who was feeling down. That weekend her kids were home and bored and she hadn't read her scriptures, and now there was a lady in the ward who needed help. She decided that she would make some banana nut bread from scratch to cheer her up. So she began the effort to make banana nut bread. In between adding all of the ingredients she was interrupted by her kids pulling at her shirt, wanting her to come play outside with them. Overwhelmed by everything she had to do, she yelled at them to go play outside by themselves and got back to work on the banana bread. She was then interrupted by the Spirit telling her that she hadn't read her scriptures that day. She resolved to do it later and shut the oven door to begin cooking the bread. The timer rang and out came two loaves of perfect banana nut bread. She let them sit for a bit while cleaning all of the dishes she used and then bagged the bread and was off to this sisters house. She drove all the way over and dropped it off. The sister was appreciative and quickly said goodbye. When this mother got home, she sat on the couch, tired from cooking and cleaning, she saw her kids playing outside and her scriptures sitting on the table, and heard a voice say to her, "I never said anything about banana nut bread."

This story to me, says a lot about simplicity. Sometimes we don't even see the most important things that are right in front of us. Sometimes we put "banana bread" in front of our families or God and get caught up in the unimportant things. The good thing is that we have a holiday that helps remind us of what we have. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to strengthen our resolve to see what matters most and be thankful for those things. We can choose to let go of the things that don't matter and focus on what truly matters most.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. For me, Thanksgiving was great! The Brown family was so kind and we got lots of leftovers to take home, which is always so nice! 2nd or 3rd day Thanksgiving always tastes great.

Also, we did family history with Sonny, who just got baptized 2 weeks ago, and he found 3 names to take to the temple! We are so excited! His temple trip to do baptisms is on December 8th! We cannot wait!

Have a marvelous week!

Hermana Zimmerman