Happy Birthday! President Kimball

Heavenly Father dwells in a heavenly place where there is order and beauty. His earthly kingdom, too, is meant to be a beautiful place where things are pleasant and orderly.

Keeping the world clean and lovely isn’t just a job for adults or older people. Boys and girls can help, too, right in their own homes, yards, and neighborhoods.

It gives us a satisfied and peaceful feeling to put things away where they belong. And when they are no longer useful or when we see litter around we should do all we can to keep these things from uglifying our surroundings.

March 28 is the birthday of our prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball. A wonderful gift to him would be for all of us to do as he has asked us. In our last general conference he said:

“We have launched a cleanup campaign. We are a throw-away people. Trash piles grow faster than population by far. Now we ask you to clean up your homes and your farms. ‘Man is the keeper of the land and not its possessor.’

“Broken fences should be mended or removed. Unused barns should be repaired, roofed, painted, or removed. Sheds and corrals should be repaired and painted, or removed. Weedy ditch banks should be cleared. Abandoned homes could probably be razed. We look forward to the day when, in all of our communities … there would be a universal, continued movement to clean and repair and paint barns and sheds, build sidewalks, clean ditch banks, and make our properties a thing of beauty to behold.

“‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’ (Ps. 24:1.) Therefore, we urge each of you to dress and keep in a beautiful state the property that is in your hands.”

Boys and girls everywhere send President Kimball birthday greetings and a promise that they will help to make our world a more beautiful place in which to live.

Photo by Eldon Linschoten