Parable of the washing machine

A parable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson.

At stake conference this last weekend we had a visiting GA. He is a member of the Quorum of the Seventy (how many quorums of 70 are there now?). Anyway, he told us of a parable that he had heard from one of the Apostles. I hesitate to put this on my blog because it will be totally from memory and I would hate to miss quote a 70 who was telling a story about an Apostle. So, this is not fact, this is a parable told 3rd hand. I will not even mention the 70's name nor the Apostle.

Here is the situation. The visiting GA said he was in a meeting with a number of brand new Mission Presidents and their wives. The Apostle told them a parable then left the room. He told them to figure out what it meant and then call him back and let him know.

Here is the Parable of the washing machine.

"At the front of the store was a new washing machine. There were a number of salesman standing around the washing machine. The inventor of the washing machine was also there. The wife of the inventor walks up to the group standing around the new washing machine and asks, "What is this supposed to do?"."


Well, that is it! The GA then opened up the room for discussion to come up with the meaning of this parable.

What do you think it means?

Inspection

I have implemented a new program in the Carter House. It is called inspection. I wasn't sure if it would work or not but so far, it has been great.

I have two daughters that don't think twice about dropping anything and everything they have on the floor of their room. They have 200 million stuffed animals, they have 100 million books, and 50 million crayons. In a matter of minutes their room can be so cluttered with stuff that you can not even see the floor. Then, every Saturday we go through the process of yelling and screaming at them to clean up their rooms. It really never gets clean. SO, last Saturday I held to my guns and made sure that EVERYTHING was picked up off of the floor. I mean everything. Not one animal, not one shirt, not one sock. Then, I told the girls that I would inspect their room every day.

First day, I found a few things on the floor during inspection and I found their drawers open and shoes left out. I pointed them out and the girls put the stuff away. The room was clean. The next day, less items were on the floor. Each day there have been less and less stuff on the floor. Tomorrow is Saturday and I think they are starting to see with a "small" amount of effort all week they will have a clean room the next Saturday.

The girls like it so much, they find me when I get home from work and ask for an inspection of their room. I have started to have fun with it and I am now requiring them to salute. :-)



The next disaster area I am hoping to clean up with my inspection tactics will be unleashed on the boys. I'll let you know how it goes.