Olive harvest

Last week the Elders  Wilson , Sousa and I went out to a grove of olive trees with Sister Odelia to help her harvest olives. I have always wondered what the garden of Gethsemane might have looked like and this is what I pictured. As you can see from the photos below some of these trees are very old. Odelia said that some of them were over 300 years old and still producing olives. She said it was a shame but the new trees of today only produce for about 20 years.
We first picked up all the good olives under the tree that were on the ground and then laid these large mesh blankets out all around the tree. Then we took sticks with little children´s plastic rakes fastened to the end of them and hooked a branch and then shook it like crazy to knock all the olives out of it. Then we took the rakes and raked all the ones that didn´t come out one or two at a time until the bottom part of the tree was cleaned then I climbed up into the tree and shook and raked until we had all the  olives  onto the mesh blankets. then we sat down and proceeded to pick the olives from the leaves and stems that were mixed in with them and put them into buckets and then into sacks. Four of us worked for about 7 hours and  Odelia said she would get 5 liters of olive oil from what we had done that day. Harvesting olives is hard work.
    As I was working that day I kept thinking here I am I Portugal out in the middle of no where in a beautiful grove of olive trees. What a marvelous blessing and opportunity. And then I began to reflect, I wonder if this is anything like the garden of Gethsemane where the Lord and Savior suffer in such agony for the wrongs, the hurts, the injustices, the sickness and heart ache of the world for each of His brothers and sisters. I had the wonderful feeling of peace and tranquility that came over me and the spirit whispered it was much like this. So I bowed my head and in silent prayer gave thanks to my Father in Heaven for the sacred gift of the atonement. But today as we look around at the people of the world and try to talk to them about the gospel I find that they are like the children of Israel when they were infested with poisonous snakes and Moses lifted up a brass serpent and all they had to do was look upon it and many refused and perished from snake bite. As we work here in Portugal to try to bring people to just look and see, but just like the children of Israel they refuse to even let us talk to them. And then we find some one willing to listen and watch as the light of the gospel changes their life for the better.
Today is Sunday and we had district conference and after I had the privilege of ordaining of these those found souls to the Melchizedek Priesthood and have him give me a great big hug and say thank you. and then all the turn downs and leave me alone and I  don´t want anything from you are worth it. What a sacred blessing to be here and do this work. Love Elder / Sister Roberts

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