I grew up in Southern Utah and had the opportunity to work on the family farm nearly every day. My grandpa bought land that he wanted to farm. This was just raw desert land at the time—covered in sagebrush, cactus, and rocks.

We began the work of clearing the ground. We used tractors to plow through the sagebrush, cactus, and other debris. Once that was done, we were left with sandy soil and a lot of rocks. The next job was clearing those rocks—a task perfect for my cousins and me. We spent the scorching Southern Utah summer walking the field, picking up rocks, making piles, and then hauling them away in a loader.

It was exhausting, repetitive, and often felt endless. But my grandpa always reminded us to find something to be grateful for, even in the hard times. He’d say, “Boys, this work is building more than a field—it’s building you.” And sometimes, with a little grin, he’d add, “You boys should be paying me for teaching you how to work!”

We learned to be grateful for the chance to work alongside each other, for the beauty of the sunsets at the end of a long day, and for the satisfaction of looking back at cleared land and knowing we had done something hard and done it well.

After the rocks were gone, the soil still needed to be fertilized, watered, planted, and nourished. This process took years before it yielded any fruit—and it’s still a work in progress today. But the lesson has stayed with me: life’s most fruitful seasons often come after the hardest work.

If you can cultivate gratitude in the middle of the dust, heat, and blisters, you’ll appreciate the harvest all the more when it comes. Over time, I learned that gratitude isn’t just for when the field is ready and the crops are growing—it’s for the dusty, blistered, rock-hauling days too. We can be grateful for the chance to grow stronger, to learn, and to prepare for blessings that haven’t arrived yet.

Just like the land, our hearts sometimes need clearing before they can produce good fruit. The Savior taught:

“He that receiveth seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit” (Matthew 13:23).

Gratitude is part of what makes our ground “good.” It softens our hearts, opens our eyes to the Lord’s hand in our lives, and reminds us that even when the harvest is far off, God is working with us and for us.

When we choose to be grateful—not just after the blessings come, but while we’re still in the middle of the hard work—we are already living in the Lord’s abundance.

These lessons of gratitude and effort learned in the field with my grandpa are times I will cherish forever. They taught me that both the work and the waiting can be holy if our hearts are full of thanks.