South Africa Durban Mission: Family Home Evening

Every other Monday the senior missionary couples get together and have Family Home Evening. Its a time to get to know eachother better and share a message. Our turn was last Monday and Elder Cinquini divided the boys and girls and gave each team some odds and ends to build something they thought would SAVE THE WORLD. It was fun to hear them laugh and giggle as they worked on their inventions. When they were all done each team stood up and described what they had built. THEN.....Ed took the men's creative invention, which was a bee pollinater, (because all the bees are dieing and there is no one to pollinate plants) and crumbled it up! Then he walked towards the girls and they screamed and hid their finger nail dryer (Yep, that was their invention). They didn't want to see their hard work crushed, but one of the guys came over and grabbed it and said," If ours gets destroyed so does yours." We were all laughing pretty hard by now. Then Ed asked the question, How did that make you feel? Well everyone felt terrible. They had worked so hard and then it was destroyed in seconds. Ed explained that everyone has a vested interest in something even if they don't do it well, and others can discourage or inadvertently hurt others feelings. For example if a friend says they are learning to play the piano which has been a life desire and you say, your too old, it takes years, you dont have the time to do it well, it may descourage that person from pursuing their dream. We should be mindful of other peoples feelings. Good message. My job was to make dessert, so I made strawberry crepes with homemade whipcream.