Week 50- Pickle juice and Count your blessings!

Well it’s Week 50!!! Two weeks and I have a year!!! And now I am 20 years old!!! Wow!! Times really flies doesn't it I know I say it a lot but really it flies!!!

This week was great!!! It was my 20th birthday on Tuesday!! it was actually a blast!!! The four of us that live in the same building celebrated by me making bacon and pancakes and we had ice cream!! ya it’s not a normal thing to eat on your birthday but we whipped it all up and we had a blast it was awesome as we just talked and enjoyed each other’s company!!  It was great, another way we celebrated it was by going through the rain about 1/2 the day! I love rain but really it was a bit wet!!! Also we went to a member’s house and they made Flan for me and well it was pretty great!! They sang the mañanitas to me and well it was pretty great. But it wasn't all that great of a work day but it was still pretty awesome!!! 

Since moving here to Juarez I have had to do a little more Bible searching haha ya it’s a very interesting thing to go into a lesson and be like “that is in the bible?” And well I am trying to tell my companion he should do the same so that we know what to talk about and how to play it off of what they say. It is actually sort of interesting because my companion and I sometimes are teaching a lesson and we do really well. But then when we talk about the bible I'm like Elder help me!! And he is like i have no clue what we are even talking about haha ya we are working on that. But anyways I read a talk this week that goes along with a Parable that Christ gave. The talk is by Elder Holland in 2012 it actually is one of my favorites!! I think I'm using that work a little too much lately! Because well I have lots of favorites!!! What it’s true! haha how can you only choose one! But this talk is called The Laborers in the Vineyard. It’s found in Matthew 20:1-15 let me just share some parts of this he says, the Savior’s parable in which a householder “went out early in the morning to hire laborers.” After employing the first group at 6:00 in the morning, he returned at 9:00 a.m., at 12:00 noon, and at 3:00 in the afternoon, hiring more workers as the urgency of the harvest increased. The scripture says he came back a final time, “about the eleventh hour” (approximately 5:00 p.m.), and hired a concluding number. Then just an hour later, all the workers gathered to receive their day’s wage. Surprisingly, all received the same wage in spite of the different hours of labor. Immediately, those hired first were angry, saying, “These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.” When reading this parable, perhaps you, as well as those workers, have felt there was an injustice being done here. Let me speak briefly to that concern.

First of all it is important to note that no one has been treated unfairly here. The first workers agreed to the full wage of the day, and they received it. Furthermore, they were, I can only imagine, very grateful to get the work. In the time of the Savior, an average man and his family could not do much more than live on what they made that day. If you didn’t work or farm or fish or sell, you likely didn’t eat. With more prospective workers than jobs, these first men chosen were the most fortunate in the entire labor pool that morning.

Indeed, if there is any sympathy to be generated, it should at least initially be for the men not chosen who also had mouths to feed and backs to clothe. Luck never seemed to be with some of them. With each visit of the steward throughout the day, they always saw someone else chosen.

But just at day’s close, the householder returns a surprising fifth time with a remarkable eleventh-hour offer! These last and most discouraged of laborers, hearing only that they will be treated fairly, accept work without even knowing the wage, knowing that anything will be better than nothing, which is what they have had so far. Then as they gather for their payment, they are stunned to receive the same as all the others! How awestruck they must have been and how very, very grateful! Surely never had such compassion been seen in all their working days.

It is with that reading of the story that I feel the grumbling of the first laborers must be seen. As the householder in the parable tells them (and I paraphrase only slightly): “My friends, I am not being unfair to you. You agreed on the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to get the work, and I am very happy with the way you served. You are paid in full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.” Then this piercing question to anyone then or now who needs to hear it: “Why should you be jealous because I choose to be kind?”  

Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.

Furthermore, envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment! To say nothing of the chagrin in the end, when we find that God really is both just and merciful, giving to all who stand with Him “all that he hath,” as the scripture says. So lesson number one from the Lord’s vineyard: coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image.

So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live. 

like this Parable and as Elder Holland tells us We are not sure when we will get he opportunity to work in the lords vineyard. but we are always happy to take the work. But are we the kind of people that as Elder Holland says drown another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment! are we like that? I sure hope not we should be happy that so many people are having happy moments we need to get out of our unhappy moments and get into a good mood. are we going to be the kind of people who are always mad because our friends are getting blessed. or as my Companion told someone who was not having a great day because her neighbor got a new car, he said, Sister are you serious why are you mad because they got a new car, she said, because now I have to see it everyday and it Will haunt me! wow Why? because they are so blessed, then came in the spirit working on our minds and then we both said sister, how is your family? boom! right then we turned that frown upside down and she said they are great we never don't have food because my husband works and well they are happy and they love me, I said What a blessing sister now why are you mad when they get something new, you should be happy for them and say good for them, she joked and said good for them they have a car payment to pay now, ha ha she was just joking around but really we should do as a hymn tells us to do, 

When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done

 Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear
Count your many blessings; ev'ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold.
Count your many blessings; money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven nor your home on high.

So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings; angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey's end.

(Chorus)
Count your blessings;
Name them one by one.
Count your blessings;
See what God hath done.
Count your blessings;
Name them one by one.
Count your many blessings;
See what God hath done.
Count your many blessing!!

like in the story of the laborers in the vineyard count the blessing of getting the work for the day

Count your many blessings!!! Name them one by one!! Like the people in the story of the laborers they should count the blessing of having the work! We have so many blessings especially to have a loving father in heaven who loves us and a family who cares for us!!!! What else do we need?  I love this work and what a blessing to be here!!!

Just remember to count the blessings we have not to drink a quart of pickle juice!!! Hope your week is pickle juice drinking free!!! 

Love you all!!!

Elder Jaymes Monson

Elder Jeffery R Holland April 2012 GC http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-laborers-in-the-vineyard?lang=eng