No Graffiti! Yes Clean and Safe Town! 1

Graffiti is a headache in Australia because it does not look good aesthetically and gives a negative impression that the “area is not safe” to local residents.

On a mild sunny Sunday morning, from the early hours on, about eighty brothers and sisters gathered together to remove graffiti from the wall of an industrial building at Blacktown.

Everyone started to paint the building. There was graffiti all over big building wall and even beyond the fence, so at first we could not even conceive the idea of painting the entire building. The lower part of the wall was painted by the short elementary school members, the upper part by the tall members and the members with the rollers, and the middle part by the rest of the members. The progress was made one by one.

Rubbing and scrubbing!

Wherever the paint brushes passed by, the scribbled graffiti on the wall disappeared and the wall became clean. The members who finished the work quickly picked up the trash around them and looked around to see if there was anything more to do. The clean wall alone could make the building and the neighboring residential area clean and neat.

This volunteer service let me look back on whether the sinful habits of my soul bring negative effects to me and to my brothers and sisters just as the messy graffiti made the whole city look negative. In addition, it was a day to learn that wiping off our sins and keeping our souls clean with the water of life given by Heavenly Father and Mother can have a positive effect on the surroundings.