The Gardener and the Currant Bush
Why this app exists, and where the name comes from
— President Hugh B. Brown, "God Is the Gardener""I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, 'Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.'"
In 1968, President Hugh B. Brown shared a parable at BYU that has resonated with Latter-day Saints for generations. He told of a currant bush on his farm in Canada that had grown six feet tall — all wood, no fruit. He cut it down to a stump.
He imagined the bush protesting: "I thought you were the gardener here." And the gardener's reply: "I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be."
Years later, after being denied a military promotion because of his faith, Brown heard those same words again — this time directed at him. The bitterness left, replaced by trust that God knew what he was shaping.
Cut Down to Grow
Currant was built by someone who lived this parable.
My mission was cut short by a medically induced psychotic episode. One day I was serving, planning, and pouring everything into the people around me. The next, I was in a hospital trying to understand what happened to my life.
Coming home early doesn't just end your mission — it dismantles the identity you built around it. The structure. The purpose. The daily rhythm of planning, serving, and growing. All of it, gone overnight.
I needed something to help me rebuild. Not a productivity app or a generic habit tracker — something that understood the specific way a mission teaches you to live: track the people you care about, plan your week with intention, and grow across every dimension of your life. Physical. Spiritual. Intellectual. Social.
That tool didn't exist. So I built it.
Why "Currant"
The name comes from Brown's parable. A currant bush that gets cut down doesn't stop growing — it grows back stronger, more fruitful, more purposeful.
That's what this app is about. Whether your mission ended on schedule or was cut short, whether you've been home for two weeks or ten years — the habits and principles you built don't have to die. They can grow into something better than what you had before.
Currant is for every RM who felt like they were pruned. It's the tool that helps you bear fruit again.
What It Became
What started as a personal rebuilding tool became something bigger. It turns out a lot of returned missionaries feel the same gap — the loss of Area Book's structure, the disappearance of weekly planning, the slow drift away from the people and habits that meant the most.
Currant brings that structure back. Not as a mission app, but as a life app — built on the same principles, designed for the chapter that comes after.