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 Wintertime up around the Wesson place is about the finest dang time of year. The spuds is in, the hay’s put up, and about the only thing for a fella to do is tinker with the tractor, keep the cattle and horses fed, chip the ice off the creek so the livestock can drink, and catching up on your home teaching. Sometimes ole’ Rulon visits his families two and three times a month during the winter to help make up for the times I don’t get around to it the rest of the year, and as long as Sister Wesson sends me out with a pie or something, those folks seem glad enough to see me.
Since I ain’t exactly overcome with chores when the world is buried under five feet of snow, I like taking out the snow machine and clearing out some of the more obnoxious critters from up around our place, mostly the coyotes and foxes. You can run ‘em down in no time when they’s bogged down in the snow, and before they know what’s up, kablooie! No coyote pups come spring, just the way the Good Lord intended.
So that’s just what I was doing last Sun…er, that is, Saturday, when suddenly I was overcome by the Spirit purty near bonkin’ me on the head with the notion that this Polaris Z5000 that I give myself for Christmas this year is exactly the same as the gift of the Holy Ghost I got when I was baptized all them years ago. Well, I mean to tell you, once I seen that, I could feel in the pit of my stomach that I had tripped over a gospel truth. That, and I flew over a ditch bank and landed a bit too hard on the other side.
See, the Holy Ghost is there to help scoot a person along through this here mortal probation (dang if that ain’t a six dollar word), just like that snow machine scoots me along through the fields up here around Squirrel. But just like your sled, you got to keep Him tuned up by going to church, paying the tithing, and not cussin’ much around the Sisters. If you don’t, then just when you need Him, he might conk out and leave you with a stupor of thought in your hour of need, just like last year when me and Dick Wixom got ourselves stuck up on Sawtelle Mountain ‘cause ol’ Dick hadn’t put oil in his sled for a coon’s age and my plugs got fouled at the same time. I suppose Dick’s machine is still up there somewhere, but it was a Yamaha anyhow and weren’t worth the trouble of hauling it out. Dick got his self a new Arctic Cat and so he’s a helluva lot better off now. You got to keep your Holy Ghost oiled with fresh plugs, you hearing what I’m saying?
But what the Holy Ghost is best at is helping a fella take care of the evil what keeps sneaking into his life. Take last summer for instance. One a the hired hands here on the Wesson place, a young kid by the name of Blanding, come out to help buck hay, and ol’ Rulon could smell the Boones Farm Strawberry Hill on his breath. The Holy Ghost moved me to knock that kid on his keester and send him on in to the café for a pot of hot coffee to sober him up before he came near the bailer. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be good to encourage a boy that age to drink coffee, but the Holy Ghost made it clear that sometimes you fight fire with fire, so to speak. I never would a thought a that on my own.
That’s what the Holy Ghost can do for you if you use Him proper. See, it’s the same with my new sled. Though I’ll admit, it’s recerational…recrenation…it’s mighty damn fun to go 85 miles an hour, that machine is at its best when I spy me a varmint what needs to be whacked. Without the power of that snowmobile, those wicked critters would get clean away unless I happen to pull off a mighty fine distance shot. With that power, though, I can run ‘em down before they even know I seen ‘em. The snow machine gives me power to overcome the wicked critters of the world, same as the Holy Ghost gives me power to overcome the evil folks and habits what seem abundant enough in my life. If I can keep the Holy Ghost running on all cylinders, I’m sure I’ll one day catch all the critters what muck up my life, and I’ll ride that hummer right on into the Celestial Kingdom. The Power of the Holy Ghost and the Power of the Polaris—they seem about one and the same to ol’ Rulon.
So here’s hoping your Holy Ghost ain’t gathering dust in the shed of your life, and instead, that the two a you is out running down the coyotes of temptation, lust and apostasy, and cleaning out the fields of your personal worthiness or something so when spring comes, there’s nothing eating your spiritual chickens ‘cept you.
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