“Keep yourself downwind of the Spirit.”  That was my waking message this morning.  Where did it come from?  What does it mean?

Yesterday we made the 22-kilometer drive to Fanafo.  It took 1-1/2 hours to get there over the rough, pock-marked, coral roads.  That’s just under 10 miles per hour.  At one point we passed a large coconut plantation.  The trees were planted in long, orderly rows.  All of the trees were devoid of leaves or branches except at the very tops, and most were straight and tall.  Occasionally, however, the orderliness of the rows was interrupted by individual trees that had grown out at an angle for the first 20 feet before their trunks turned upward.  One was close to the road.  I stopped and took its picture.  Marjorie pointed it out, and called it “the repentance tree.”  It had been the black sheep of the family, and had taken a wrong direction before it repented and turned toward the light.

We went to Fanafo so that I could fix the bathroom door in the missionaries’ house.  It was off its hinges, and the edge of the door was partially split so that it couldn’t even hold the top hinge.  Like the coconut palm, it needed repentance.  It needed to do more than just turn toward the light, however.  It couldn’t fix itself.  It needed the help of the bishop who could use the tools of the Atonement to make it whole and useful again.

I had taken glue and clamps, new screws, and a hammer and chisel with me.  I glued the crack, and moved the hinges.  An elder from the Solomon Islands helped me, and clicked his tongue approvingly as he watched how I went about making the repairs.  Seeing how I set one hinge, he asked if he could do the other.  Isn’t that the way the gospel works?  You show one individual how the Atonement works in his life, and then he helps another.

While the Solomon Island elder chiseled, I moved on to the laundry room door which was also off its hinges, but which only needed new screws to be made functional again.  It was hot, sweaty work in the airless confines of that tiny house in tropical Vanuatu.  My whole head was wet.  Trickles of sweat ran down the lenses of my glasses, making it difficult to see.  Salty rivulets ran into my eyes, and stung them, making vision harder yet.

The elder helped me rehang the bathroom door.  It fit, the hinges worked, and it latched properly.  He clicked his tongue again in amazement.  It was then my turn to be amazed as I exited the house and found a breeze outside.  It was heavenly.  It was relief.

It was perhaps these experiences and sensations that brought on this morning’s waking thought:  “Keep yourself downwind of the Spirit.”  The Holy Ghost is like a breath of fresh air.  The Spirit is relief.  The Spirit is soothing.  The Spirit points us toward the light.  The Spirit is like a gentle breeze.  We must never allow anything to block its access to us.  We must never do or say anything which would cause us to stand in the way of someone else receiving its gentle caresses.

Don’t ever get upwind of the Spirit.  Always be where it can reach you.