My brother's ranching outfit faced a gigantic problem.  They obtained the grazing allotment on the national forest that another rancher had held for many years, and which he was releasing because of his retirement.  This was an exciting opportunity.  The allotment covered a vast area, and it was beautiful up there in the mountains.

They loaded several hundred cows and calves into trucks, hauled them 40 miles from home, and set them free in this vast tract of land.  If cows are capable of feeling thrilled, those cows should have been.  They were out of the hot valley, and up where it was cool and green and shady.  Grass and water were abundant.  Best of all there were no fences to constrain them.  They were free to go anywhere.

And they did.  They dispersed over a wide area.  Some went north.  Some went south.  Some went east or west.  Some climbed the mountains, and some stayed down in the draws.  Life was perfect.  They had everything they needed or wanted, and they had no worries.  It was cow paradise.

They were just like us.  God created this beautiful, wonderful, verdant world, and plunked us down in it.  We have everything that is designed to make us happy.  But there is one problem, and it is the same problem that the cows faced.  This isn't our home, and one day we will need to return to where we came from.  Winter is coming when the necessary things of life will no longer be so freely available.

The cows didn't know this, but their humans did.  A great gathering was initiated.  The cowboys found groups of cattle scattered here and there.  Sometimes it was just a single cow they found high on the hill side.  They gathered them all in as fast as they could.  The cows were all numbered and carefully counted.

The easy ones were located, and then things got hard.  Some cows didn't want to be found.  They hid in the brush.  Horseback riders covered mile after mile searching for the missing 80 head.  Planes and helicopters were hired to scan the forests and mountains for the missing cows.  Snow started to fall, making the situation dire.  The numbers of missing cows were eventually whittled down to 30.

As winter came on, the cows didn't know what to do or where to go.  They had never been there before, and because they were trucked, and not driven in a cattle drive, they had no idea where home was.

They were like a lot of people around us.  Without someone to guide them and to help them, they have no idea where to go or what to do or how to prepare for the inevitable time when they will have to leave the paradise that they are in.  We're the cowboys who have been given the task of effecting the gathering.

The Lord said in Doctrine and Covenants 123:12, that “there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, … who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.”

 

They are like the cow in another winter roundup which initially resisted being gathered.  She hid, and was eventually knee-deep in snow.  She was noticed, and two cowboys backed their small truck into a bank of earth, and unloaded their horses.  They rode several miles to the cow's location.  She had become a wild animal, and was instinctively not happy to see them; but deep down, she was overjoyed to be found.  She took off running, following the track that the horses had made in the snow.  She left the cowboys far behind.  The cowboys weren't worried about losing her, because her tracks were easy to follow in the snow, and she was going in the direction that they wanted her to go.  They retraced their route back to the truck, and found the cow loaded and waiting for them.  She had loaded herself, and was impatient to be saved.

Back on my brother's grazing allotment in the national forest, there were still 25 cows yet to be found.  It was now the middle of December, and snow laid heavy in the mountains.  A recreationist rode his snowmobile to the top of a high mountain pass, and was astonished to see five head of cows in a small area that they had tromped down in the snow.  He reported them, and the owner dispatched another snow-mobiler to bring them down, where he put them in the care of a cowgirl.  She reported that they were easy to load into the trailer.  They, too, were grateful to be rescued.

But what about the other 20?  Do we give up?  Do we forget about them?  Do we say that we tried, but that they didn't want to be found?  They are either going to starve to death, or be found by the wolves, which is what happened to a group of seven cows in some mountains in the neighboring county.  They got stranded on the wrong side of a ridge by the deep snows.

I had a very vivid, and upsetting, dream while on our mission in Vanuatu which applies here.  The dream came from the Lord.  He was using it to teach me.  I'll quote what I wrote at the time:

“I was very grateful a short time ago to wake up and realize that I was in Vanuatu and not back home. In my dream it just dawned upon me that I had forgotten to feed the calf that I had locked in the barn.  I had forgotten to feed it for days.  It had been so long that I would either find it emaciated or dead.  I felt terrible.  The poor thing was locked up, helpless, and depending upon me.  I had neglected my duty, and now it was starving to death.

“Not only had I forgotten to feed the calf, I had forgotten to milk the cow, its mother.  She was surely suffering.

“And not only that, I also had two pigs locked up in another pen in the barn, and they hadn’t been fed, either.

“How could I have been so careless and neglectful!?  I was scared to death to learn what suffering my forgetfulness had caused.  I was just set to run out the door and over to the barn when I awoke.

“'I am so glad to be here!' I shouted into the darkness.  My startled wife giggled, and asked, 'What did you dream?'

“As I settled down and prepared to go back to sleep, I heard a small voice in my mind.  It said, 'Feed my sheep.'

“Suddenly I understood.  We’re all surrounded by people who are as helpless and starving and as dependent upon us to feed them as my calf that was locked up in the barn.  If I don’t do my duty and feed them, I know how ashamed and awful my neglect will cause me to feel.

“Let it be known that I am grateful beyond words to find myself in Vanuatu this morning.”

 

We are surrounded by lost souls who are in need of being gathered before the days of darkness, trial, and tribulation that are coming.  They need to be found and shown the way home.

I used to live with God.  He determined that it was time for me to leave home to find out who I was,  and to learn what my capabilities were.  He plunked me down in the middle of this wilderness, and I didn't have a clue where I was, who I was, or that I had ever been anywhere else.  I would have gone on in ignorance all my life, but someone gave me a road map.  It's called the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.  It turned my orientation on end.  Suddenly I knew who I was, who God is, and that there are all sorts of helps, directions, and road signs all around me.  I discovered the scriptures, prayer, living prophets, the Holy Ghost, and many, many people who are anxious to help me and to point the way for me to go.

I have been gathered.  Now it is my duty to assist.