One day, I received a call from a brother. He asked me if I wanted to go along with him because there was a garden cleaning at a place he knew. I’d never done it before, but we headed to the garden together because he told me it would be easy.
In the large garden, there were many trees, like persimmons, pomelos, and guava trees. But weeds and moss had grown heavily, and the leaves and fruits that fell from the trees covered the ground. The fruits on the trees were seemingly fine, but pests nibbled away at many of them from the inside.
The road was covered with moss and weeds, the trees were dry, and the fruits were getting rotten for not being harvested on time. The owner of the garden didn’t seem to take good care of the plants. I thought, ‘Why did the owner plant so many trees if he was not going to take care of them?’
The brother and I immediately started cleaning the garden. It looked easy, but it was tough to bend my waist forward to remove the leaves and rotten fruits. We plucked off the fruits that pests gouged into, and gathered them in one place; the amount was quite a lot.
As I cleaned up the neglected garden, I looked back on myself. Heavenly Father and Mother, who are good Farmers, have entrusted me with the work of taking care of brothers and sisters. But I could not give enough love because I did not value one soul. I could not embrace them with respect and understanding, but hurt them with rude remarks. It turned out that I did not grow the fruits that God had given me into fully grown good fruits. I came to think whether any of brothers had left God because of lack of my care just as the fruits in the garden fell from the trees and were rotten because they were not taken care of.
From now on, with the heart of Heavenly Father and Mother, I will give love to my brothers and sisters whom They have entrusted to me. Keeping in mind Heavenly Mother’s words, “One soul is more precious than the whole world,” I will diligently take good care of my heavenly family members until they become good fruits in God.