The Grapes of Wrath

My father loves to make things out of our garden. From pickles to nuts to freezing green beans we have tried making many things from our garden. Usually our ideas stem from us growing way more than we would ever want of something (side note: never plant more than one zucchini plant unless you plan on making zucchini bread every day for at least 3 months). One year in particular we had far too many grapes. My Mom hopelessly tried to juice them but it was time-consuming and yielded very little profit. So, my Dad came to the rescue with a fool proof idea: raisins. They had to be pretty easy to make and they don't go bad very quickly so it was the perfect solution-or so we thought.
Turns out there are a few steps to making grapes; you have to de-stem them and then spread them out and then put some lemon juice on them before you set them out to dry in the sun. Pretty simple but surprisingly time consuming, especially with little home-grown grapes. We all soon were rather tired of making raisins, but we kept going as best we could. My Dad came in one day and saw our red rimmed eyes, bleeding fingers from de-stemming (that may or may not be an exaggeration), and the huge pile of grapes yet to undergo the process of becoming raisins and took pity on us. He proposed yet another idea: to just throw the grapes outside and without de-stemming them or putting lemon juice on them. We told him we didn't think that would work, we would be missing some key steps, but he told us he doubted it mattered much and that he was sure it would work and save us a lot of time and effort. So we did as he suggested, we simply unceremoniously placed the grapes on cookie sheets, covered it all with a sheet, and waited. Then we waited some more. Then we mourned the fact that for a whole week no one had been able to use any cookie sheets because they were all still outside. Then we waited a little longer. Finally, when the fruit flies showed up we decided it was time to throw the now rotting grapes away and reclaim our cookie sheets... Needless to say it had been a bit of a failure-though a well meaning and noble try.

In essence we are all grapes right now doing our best to become more like raisins (Christ and Heavenly Father). The steps of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are simple and easy to follow, but sometimes we seek to find an easier, shorter way. But just like a grape will never be a raisin without it undergoing a precise but simple process, we can never reach our potential without carefully following each step of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). Nephi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon said:
"wherefore, they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved." (1 Nephi 15:14)
Let us each learn more about the very points of Christ's doctrine, so that we too can reach our full potential.