In preparing for the upcoming seasons, many communities sponsor a fall or spring cleanup. This gives homeowners and others the opportunity to rid yards of unwanted foliage or leaves that can create havoc in colder weather by clogging storm drains or gutters.

"Spring cleaning" used to be a several-day event, as carpets and curtains were taken down and cleaned and wallpaper scrubbed with a pink substance that would turn gray as the coal dust was removed from walls. You could tell how effective were your efforts by how dark the substance would become.

"Why all the fuss?" children would wonder as their parents and grandparents handed out assignments in the house or in the yard. "It's just going to get dirty again — the leaves will come and the weeds will return."

It takes time — maybe even a lifetime — to realize that removing the grime from the house and the yard improves not only their appearances, but also our own attitudes toward ourselves. The adage "cleanliness is next to godliness" is not without merit.

A physical "cleaning" can also inspire one to perform a spiritual cleansing as well. Each day we can renew our spiritual selves through prayer and other means. As we follow President Gordon B. Hinckley's counsel to read the Book of Mormon before year's end, we can understand why this book is important to us today.

Moroni, in the closing chapters, issues this challenge to us: "Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God."

He then continues, "See that ye are not baptized unworthily; see that ye partake not of the sacrament of Christ unworthily; but see that ye do all things in worthiness, and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and if ye do this, and endure to the end, ye will in nowise be cast out" (Mormon 9: 28-29).

President Joseph F. Smith remarked, "The more righteous and upright, pure and undefiled, the Latter-day Saints become, the less power will Satan have over them, for in proportion to your unity and uprightness, honesty, and fidelity to the cause in which you are engaged, in such proportion will the power of the adversary be weakened" (Conference Report, October 1911, p. 11).

If there is something amiss in our lives — like the unseen grime on our home's walls — we should do what we can to rid ourselves of it.

President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, has counseled, "There is a great cleansing power. Know that you can be clean. If you are outside the Church, the covenant of baptism itself represents, among other things, a washing and a cleansing. For those of you who are in the Church, there is a way, not entirely painless, but certainly possible. You can stand clean and spotless before Him. Guilt will be gone, and you can be at peace. Go to your bishop or your branch president. He holds the key to this cleansing power. Go and have an interview with him, and then you do what he says, and you can become clean again" (Area Conference Report, Stockholm, 1974 p. 84).

Having confessed our sins to proper authority and resolving to go forward in faith, we should harken unto the counsel provided by our prophets, expressed in this way by President Spencer W. Kimball: "One of the requisites for repentance is the living of the commandments of the Lord. Perhaps few people realize that as an important element; though one may have abandoned a particular sin and even confessed it to his bishop, yet he is not repentant if he has not developed a life of action and service and righteousness, which the Lord has indicated to be very necessary" (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 105).

Our efforts should be to put off those things that hold us back from the presence of God — to rid ourselves of ungodliness — that we can enjoy the peace promised by our leaders and the Savior Himself, who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).