"In all matters moderation is desirable."

So I need to be honest with myself. Trusting in God is great, but it doesn't make you immune to feeling down. Recently, we've been keeping busy by helping Halva. It's good because it's building a friendship that will probably become fruitful, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm actually being of valuable service to the community. I am now sympathising with the sense of urgency that Cristina talks about. We are doing too much relaxing and not enough service. I need to build up my patience, while avoiding the extreme of remaining stagnant, and need to be motivated and assertive, without having unreasonable goals or expectations. The later is more difficult for me.

We visited Ernie out in Tabernacle. The Bahá'í­s here have plenty of love, but aren't sure how to to channel that into effectively helping their community. That's what the institute process is for.

We (mostly LD) got a lot of yard work done. God bless him! He mowed the whole lawn and cleared up almost all the weeds with the machette. He uncovered a lot of aloe plants. Cristina found a lime tree in the back. I picked out some weeds in the front. We have a vision of really beautifying the Center.

I just might give up on refusing to use insect repellant. (See LD's post on their overwhelming nature.) I've already proved to myself that I can do it, so there is no sense in prolonging my discomfort. Afterall, doesn't Shoghi Effendi say the following in The Advent of Divine Justice?

It must be remembered, however, that the maintenance of such a high standard of moral conduct is not to be associated or confused with any form of asceticism, or of excessive and bigoted puritanism. The standard inculcated by Bahá'u'lláh, seeks, under no circumstances, to deny anyone the legitimate right and privilege to derive the fullest advantage and benefit from the manifold joys, beauties, and pleasures with which the world has been so plentifully enriched by an All-Loving Creator. "Should a man," Bah�'u'll�h Himself reassures us, "wish to adorn himself with the ornaments of the earth, to wear its apparels, or partake of the benefits it can bestow, no harm can befall him, if he alloweth nothing whatever to intervene between him and God, for God hath ordained every good thing, whether created in the heavens or in the earth, for such of His servants as truly believe in Him. Eat ye, O people, of the good things which God hath allowed you, and deprive not yourselves from His wondrous bounties. Render thanks and praise unto Him, and be of them that are truly thankful."

However, I'm still a little bit stubborn. I should give in by tomorrow.