By Michele Garvin

My faith in mankind has just been renewed.

Since my husband has been in Arizona starting his new job, I have had plenty of challenges while I stay behind to sell the house. However, the Lord still is watching over us.

President Kimball said, “The Lord answers our prayers. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.” What a true statement! Two nights ago we had a terrible wind storm that blew our huge fig tree down. The whole tree was just laid on its side, roots and all.

I was sitting at my computer, and looked out the window to see two cars pull up to our front yard. Three men from our ward, Dave, Brian and Jeff, jumped out. Brian pulled a huge chain saw from the back of his truck and began cutting down the fig tree. I watched in amazement for a moment and then went out to thank them. They thought that we were out of town and they were trying to do this as a surprise. How sweet!

As they were working, Brian’s chain came off the saw and he had to stop. Meanwhile, a garbage truck drove into our cul-de-sac. It was Clyde, our previous garbage man.

As Clyde was driving out of the cul-de-sac, he saw the guys cutting down my tree. He stopped his truck, backed it up towards the cut down branches, and pitched in the cleanup effort.

Brian was frantically trying to get the chain saw to work again. I thanked Clyde and his partner Jamal, and introduced them to Jeff. Clyde is such an incredible man. In whatever line of work he is in, he gives 100%. What an example he has been to me through the years; always happy, with a good attitude and looking for an opportunity to go the extra mile.

Brian got the chain saw fixed. They finished cutting down the tree and then pulled the branches onto the side of the road. They were going to see if the young men would be willing to do a service project to complete the clean-up. Jeff volunteered his dumpster for the remaining branches.

Brian cut down the trunk and pulled it completely out of the ground – roots and all. He was fascinated with the shape of all the gnarly branches and wanted to take the stump home. He wanted to let it dry for a year and then take it out to the sand dunes and burn it. They will have quite the story to tell about it! I thanked them all again and they left.

A half an hour later, I was back at my computer and the garbage truck reappeared. Clyde and Jamal jumped out and start loading all the rest of the tree branches into the back of their truck!

One time was amazing, but they came back again for the rest of it! Talk about going the extra mile. It just amazed me that he would do this for me. He is not even our garbage man anymore.

I ran out to give them a treat. When Clyde saw me, he said, “Oh, we thought you were gone. We were going to surprise you.”

What Christian lesson can we learn from these good-hearted men? I think of the good Samaritan and the story of the lepers and how Christ reached out to all men. What a great example Clyde, Jamal, Brian, Jeff and Dave have been to me. What a lesson on brotherly love and kindness have they taught me.

And God said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those men didn’t bother to ask, ‘who is my neighbor?’ They just saw an opportunity to serve and acted on it.