Ward Service project

Once when we were at a ward activity out on the grassy field behind the Institute building here in Chapel Hill, we discovered an old basketball court going wild behind the foliage (the Institute building used to be a country club complete with a swimming pool and bar, then it was used for several years for church before the stake center was built). You couldn't see the basketball court because of all the vines and bushes growing in front of it. Ryan and Kevin and several people in our ward worked very hard at the ward service project in November to clear everything away, and now you can see the basketball court. I'm excited to see the amphitheater they're planning to put there. I was very proud of Kevin for being willing to be such a good helper. Ryan got to use his machete (which he bought and actually used when he was on his mission in Argentina).

The girls and I had planned to help make hygiene kits inside, but the kits were all done by the time we got there, so we helped with the other project, which was decorating lunch bags. Apparently a local church hands out sack lunches to homeless people and they like to decorate them. It sounds simple, but it was kind of hard. It's hard to come up with a motivational quote or picture for someone who is homeless. Most of the quotes that I find inspiring just aren't especially helpful or encouraging for someone who doesn't have a house. I tried writing jokes, but I could only think of three. Oh, well.

We finished off with lunch. It was fun to spend time with friends in the ward.

ward Christmas party, 2011

Last Saturday (the one over a week ago) we had our ward Christmas party. The bishop wanted to make it really special and focused on service this year, and the whole ward got involved. There were men chopping wood in the morning and families singing carols at nursing homes throughout the day. We adopted several families for Christmas and worked together to get them some gifts.

I am on the Relief Society activities committee, and we were in charge of coordinating the food for the dinner in the evening. To minimize waste, we asked the Young Women to serve the food to people as they went through the line, because usually there are a lot of little kids who take too much food and throw a lot of it away. We asked people to prepare hams and green beans that the ward purchased, and also potato dishes and desserts. I volunteered to be in charge of keeping food warm and taking food out as the servers ran out, so things were pretty crazy for a while. There were a couple of women in the kitchen chopping up hams. One of them stayed after that to cut up all the desserts into small pieces (again, to minimize waste). I think the dinner went really well!

On the stage in the gym there were two Christmas trees with all the gifts people brought for the families we adopted for Christmas. It was an amazing sight, and I felt so blessed that our family had participated. I think God was very pleased with what our ward had done.

After the dinner we sang carols and had dessert. Our family ended up staying to help clean up all the food and dishes, which was actually a lot of work! The kids were good sports about it.

looking outward

When I go through the Sunday paper for the coupon inserts, I generally go through the Parade magazine, not to read it, but because sometimes there are coupons in it. Today a story in the magazine caught my eye and I decided to read it, which is always a mistake because they don't generally write anything worthwhile in there.

The article listed several ways that people can be more courteous to each other on airplanes. Many of the suggestions were reasonable, like don't take your shoes off (smelly feet), don't talk loudly, be considerate if you are relining your seat, and so on. But I felt like literally half the article was about the things you shouldn't let your kids do on airplanes--kick the seats, cry, sing annoying songs, etc. Believe me, most parents are well aware of how annoying and distracting their children are being on the plane, and are exhausting their energy to keep them in some semblance of control. It's asking a lot to expect a small child to be quiet and good in a confined airplane seat for several hours, and having another passenger make comments about how rude it is to let their children behave so badly is only going to hurt feelings. I'm pretty sure that if the author had children, he would not have written those things, at least not so insensitively. Kevin would likely see his grandparents more often if we weren't scared of him doing these exact things.

When I mentioned this to RT, he said it reminded him of a story. I found it here, and it is quoted below.

“A young mother on an overnight flight with a two-year-old daughter was stranded by bad weather in [the] Chicago airport without food or clean clothing for the child and without money. She was two months pregnant and threatened with miscarriage, so she was under doctor’s instructions not to carry the child unless it was essential. Hour after hour she stood in one line after another, trying to get a flight to Michigan. The terminal was noisy, full of tired, frustrated, grumpy passengers, and she heard critical references to her crying child and to her sliding her child along the floor with her foot as the line moved forward. No one offered to help with the soaked, hungry, exhausted child. Then, the woman later reported, ‘Someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, “Is there something I could do to help you?” With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport’ ” (Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball [1977], 334).

Many years later, President Kimball received a letter:

“I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much.

“I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week, when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some 21 years ago in the Chicago airport. The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a young screaming child in … a [condition of] distress waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her. She had experienced four previous miscarriages which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift.

“… You comforted the crying child, and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off of my mother. I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan.

“I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example!” (quoted by Gordon B. Hinckley, in Christmas Devotional address, 18 Dec. 1983).

I thought there was such a stark contrast between what the Parade magazine said and what Spencer W. Kimball did. I realize that it's frustrating to have to hear annoying children or deal with other irritating things that people around us may do, but what if instead of looking inward and complaining that we are being inconvenienced, we were to look outward. What if instead of groaning about hearing Old MacDonald for the 500th time in a row, we were to look at the exhausted mother who hauled three small children, two car seats, and a carry-on bag or two to the airplane by herself, and think, "Gee, she looks like she could use a break. I think I'll offer to help." What if instead of getting annoyed about the huge moving truck and all the ugly boxes and furniture all over the sidewalk, and the family that is hogging the elevator with all the things they're bringing up and down, we were to offer to carry a few boxes or bring down some sandwiches and ice water? Even if on the surface it looks like someone is being inconsiderate or strange or wrong, it's so important to remember that we don't know their entire story, that, as the hymn says, "In the quiet heart is hidden / Sorrow that the eye can't see." (Lord, I Would Follow Thee, LDS hymn #220) I believe that this is how the Savior would think. When lepers came to him begging to be healed, he didn't turn them away in scorn because he could get infected if they came too close. He invited them to come to him, and he healed them and helped them.

On a similar vein, below is a Mormon Message that Kevin and I watched today. It is one of my favorite stories. It has a similar message about how we should look outward and think of ways to help other people and make their lives happier. I love the ending when the older boy says, "Now, really, don't you have a good feeling?"

Day of Service

A couple of weeks ago, our ward had a talent show, and I decided to play a piano piece by Rachmaninoff that I played in my senior recital four years ago. The next Sunday, a brother from our ward asked if I would like to play that piece and maybe one or two more at an assisted living center on the Day of Service, an event sponsored by the wards in our area in which several service projects were arranged in the community. I told him I would love to do that. Yesterday was the Day of Service. I went to the assisted living center thinking that the residents might appreciate having someone to visit, but wouldn't care too much about me playing the piano. When I walked in, the people I saw were mostly sitting in chairs with little expression on their faces. I guess you can't know for sure how much they're taking in, but I didn't feel like I was doing anything special when for all I knew these people weren't even aware that someone was playing music. But after I had played a couple of songs, the brother who had asked me to come told me that there was a lady who wanted to meet the person playing the piano. There was a sweet, bright-eyed woman with white hair sitting in an armchair, and she said she used to play the piano ("Beethoven, Mozart, Bach . . . I played all of those") and asked me to play some more songs. So I played a couple more, and then I went and talked to her again. She told me about how she would love to still play the piano, but she can't get onto the piano bench because it's not very stable and she has to use a walker. She also said that she had just been saying that she wished people would come sometimes and play classical music, and then I started playing, and she was so excited to hear someone playing classical music. I'm grateful that I was able to gladden someone's heart with my talents. Sometimes I have wondered if it was even worth it to learn to play the piano when I can't really practice regularly right now and the only benefit seems to be that occasionally I have some fun playing songs, but then I have experiences like this and I'm reminded that it was worthwhile, even if it was all just to bring a little sunshine to a little white-haired lady at a nursing home.

Survey

Mosiah 4:15
15 Ye will teach them to ^dlove one another, and to serve one another.

Matthew 22:36-40
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt ^alove the Lord thy God with all thy ^bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy ^cmind.

38 This is the first and great ^acommandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt ^alove thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the ^alaw and the prophets.

One of the things I want most to teach my children is to love and serve one another. King Benjamin taught that we are supposed to do this, and Christ said that the second great commandment is to love others. I feel that it is so important to teach my children this important truth because it is a commandment that is greatly valued by the Lord. I really want to learn to do this effectively.

I have been thinking about some ways that my mom taught me the importance of service. She really exemplifies what is taught in Mosiah 2:17 and is a great example of giving service. I definitely want to try to do similar things as an example to my own children. One of the things she is really good at is giving secret service. Sometimes I have been a participant in her acts of secret service, and I saw in her face that it makes her so excited to do those things and know that those people will never know she did it. She taught me secret service by asking for my help to do something for somebody. She also would offer suggestions of things I could do for secret service, such as putting away one of my sisters' clothes or making one of their beds. I admit that a lot of the time I was pretty reluctant to do the things she suggested, but there were still times when I felt the joy of secret service like she did. Eventually I found that it was especially fun to do secret service that I had thought of doing on my own. Some of the things I remember doing include sneaking downstairs early in the morning to set out everything for breakfast (or sometimes even making a nice breakfast) before Mom and Dad could do it and changing dirty diapers before Mom even knew they needed changing. I really liked doing these things because I liked thinking about what a relief it would be to Mom to not have to worry about that one extra thing to do. Unfortunately, the times when I did secret service really should have been much more frequent. But I feel that my mom tried very hard to teach me about service through her example and that she was successful--the times when I chose not to serve were my fault, and definitely not because she hadn't taught me to choose to serve.

So, your survey question to answer is: How are you teaching your children to love and serve each other and other people?