Letters from home are talking about strawberries.  It’s strawberry season there.  Marjorie is longing to have some fresh strawberries on her cereal in the mornings.  In the midst of her longings, she pointed out a very interesting observation.

Vanuatu is known for its much fruit.  There is fruit everywhere.  There are fruits that I’ve never seen before nor ever heard of.  But with the exception of pineapples and oranges, they’re all rather bland tasting.  As Marjorie observes, “They don’t give that burst of flavor that our fruits back home deliver.”

When you bite into a strawberry you get a burst of flavor.  The same is true with a fresh, ripe peach.  You get a burst of flavor from cherries, a crisp apple, an apricot, grapes, raspberries, and blueberries.  We’re missing these taste sensations.

We’re wondering, however, if the people of Vanuatu would even appreciate these taste sensations if they were offered the opportunity.  Their tastes differ from ours.  They don’t like the things we do, and we’re suspicious of their foods in return.  We can’t appreciate the foods that they love.  We’re not used to their foods, and they’re not used to ours.  Nevertheless, we can’t help but feel sorry for these good people who don’t know what a ripe strawberry or peach tastes like.

And then there’s the matter of eggs.  Marjorie asked me to bring some eggs home yesterday.  I went to all of the usual stores, and there were no eggs to be had anywhere in town.  The same is true of milk.  The island is out of milk except for the powdered variety that comes in cans.  There’s not a milk cow on this island.  All of the liquid milk comes preserved from Australia in one-liter cartons.  Apparently the milk ship hasn’t come in.

But eggs.  There are no eggs!  There are a dozen chickens in every yard, but they don’t lay eggs.  Most chickens just roam free, but we visited a woman yesterday who had an actual, fenced, chicken yard filled with chickens.  Marjorie commented that she must appreciate having eggs, but the woman just laughed and replied, “No got.”  These chickens lay a clutch of eggs to set on, and then they’re through laying.  Back home we have breeds of chickens where each hen will lay 300 eggs in a year.  I’m longing to provide these people with some properly-productive chickens.

And then there’s the matter of the gospel and religions.  This week my Scottish SDA friend asked to know what happens at death.  He pointed out that Ecclesiastes says that “…the dead know not any thing…” (Eccl. 9:5).  SDA belief is that once we die, we cease to exist until the resurrection.  That belief is as bland and unproductive as the fruits and eggs that I’ve been thinking about.  To my Scottish friend I read Alma’s answer when he had that same question.  (Alma 40:11-14).

The Bible is fairly devoid of any information about life continuing between death and the resurrection.  The Book of Mormon doesn’t have much, either, except those plain teachings of Alma.  Both books are also almost completely lacking an explanation of the beautiful doctrine of eternal marriage and the eternity of the family unit.

The restoration of the gospel has given a great burst of flavor to religion.  It’s given a great burst of flavor to our understanding of this world, the next world, and of the God who made them and us.  But many people are not ready to appreciate what we have to offer.

My purpose as a missionary in Vanuatu is to offer to these people a plate loaded with fruits that they have never heard of.

We’re offering the restoration of Priesthood power and authority.  We’re offering the restoration of leadership by living apostles and prophets.  We’re offering the restoration of knowledge about our pre-earth existence, and about life after death.  We’re offering the sealing together of husbands and wives, the sealing of children to parents, the linking of generations, and the possibility of living in eternal family units.  We’re offering additional, authentic scripture.  We’re offering the restoration of the ordinances and covenants that have existed since the days of Adam, and which were lost through the apostasy of the Dark Ages.  Among those lost ordinances is the conferral of the gift of the Holy Ghost upon every worthy, properly-baptized individual.  The constant companionship of the Holy Ghost is a pearl beyond price, as are all of the other fruits that we have to offer.

We have so much.  It’s crucial that we offer these fruits to others, and that we never become complacent about what we have and take these things for granted.