Making Lemonade

When I was a kid, we would go every Easter to my grandparents house in California.  Outside of their house they had this big beautiful Lemon Tree.  I remember one time my aunt and uncle told us we were going to make lemonade from the lemons.  I was so excited!

We carefully selected our lemons and squeezed all of the juice out of them to make our lemonade.  I remember looking at my glass of lemonade before taking a sip.  Growing impatient, I took a big swallow-then I spit it right back out.  It was so sour and tart!  My grandpa looked at me and laughed,  "You can't enjoy it unless there's sugar in it!"  I learned a lesson that day that if you have lemons, you can't just squeeze the juice out and call it lemonade-you have to do something to make it sweet.
My grandparents have since moved away from that cute house with the lemon tree.  I've thought often on that experience every time I hear the common phrase, "When life hands you lemons, Make Lemonade!"

The past little while has been tough.  A lot of people have decided not to listen to us-which breaks our hearts!  We love talking to people about Jesus Christ.  He is so important to us, hence why we're out here!  Along with that, and other challenges I have been facing back at home, I felt like I'd been handed a sour part of life.  I didn't want to deal with the trials and struggles I was facing.  I wanted to take an easy way out.  I quickly learned, however, that there was no easy way out.  Life's lemons were just sour.  The best thing I could do was take the lemons I'd been handed and make lemonade.

Upon this realization, I thought, how can I make life's trials sweet?  When everything is going from bad to worse, and tough to ridiculously hard--how in the world can I have a positive attitude?  The first thing I needed to realize was that my problems were my problems.  I couldn't change anything immediately.  The things I was frustrated about were all out of my control.  I can't make people choose to accept the gospel.  And I can't fix my problems back at home-why?  Because I'm not at home.  I'm serving a mission.  It took a lot of faith, and I'm still on this grand realization, that if I just trust the Lord, he will show me what I need to do, where I need to go, and who I need to be.

I'm still trying to sweeten the lemons.  So far, I've tried to sort out the problems.  I've squeezed out all the juice from those lemons-I just need to find something to sweeten things up.  The first thing that I've found to sweeten life up is work. The more I focus on working and serving those around me, the happier I am.  The second thing I learned is to laugh.  Sister Koford and I laugh every day-it's our medicine to the stresses that come along with being a missionary.  We joke, "You either laugh or cry at this point!"  Laughing always makes the day go by better and faster.  She and I have drawn mustaches on our fingers, just to spice up the day.  We've also done other silly things, like gone puddle jumping in the Kentucky Rain, bought matching shirts, and just other random things to lift our spirits.  I love her and am so grateful that she's my friend.  I'm also grateful for a loving family and great friends back at home.  They make life's journey more eventful-but also much sweeter.

My grandpa was right that day-not just about lemonade, but about life.  You can't enjoy it unless you put some sugar in it.  Find something to sweeten up your life.  And when you find it-TELL ME ABOUT IT!  I love talking to people about the different ways they over come their trials in life.  We're all in this together-so lets have a lemonade party!