Thank you to Julie Gundersen for teaching a wonderful lesson this week. Here is a brief summary:
"Opportunities to Do Good" by Henry B. Erying
"Try a little harder to be a little better."
— Gordon B. Hinckley
— Gordon B. Hinckley
We are not talking about service to feel bad at what we don’t do. We don’t need to compare to others and what they can juggle. To get down on ourselves.
With that said I hope this lesson is motivating enough to help us all want to do more.
Thomas Monson…..I am confident it is the intention of each member of the Church to serve and to help those in need. How many times has your heart been touched as you have witnessed the need of another? How often have you intended to be the one to help? And yet how often has day-to-day living interfered and you’ve left it for others to help, feeling that “oh, surely someone will take care of that need.”
Why does God give us commandments to serve and ask us to look for opportunities to do good?
· Because he wants us to progress and have joy
· 2 Nephi 2:25: Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
Our agency is essential to existence and progression.
*again following the commandments is for our benefit and learning. By us looking for opportunities to do good we are greatly blessed
President Marion G. Romney said, “You cannot give yourself poor in this work.” And then he quoted his mission president, Melvin J. Ballard, this way: “A person cannot give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return.”
Henry B. Eyring: I have been grateful for those who helped me meet my needs. I have been even more grateful over the years for those who helped me become self-reliant. And then I have been most grateful for those who showed me how to use some of my surplus to help others.
What blessings come from serving our family?
· Relationships, Trust, Greater love, Memories
Wise parents see in every need of others a way to bring blessings into the lives of their sons and daughters.
What can we teach our children that can bring them happiness?
· Teach them how to serve (as it will bring them closer to their Heavenly Father and bring them joy):
Our actions of service will speak the loudest to our families. When we serve them and others they will notice.
Henry B. Eyring suggests: Draw your family into the work with you so that they can learn to care for each other as they care for others. Your sons and daughters who work with you to serve others in need will be more likely to help each other when they are in need.
Community:
Often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart. There are those within the sphere of our own influence who, with outstretched hands, cry out, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”
David O. McKay made this statement: “Man’s greatest happiness comes from losing himself for the good of others.”
What blessings come from directly involving ourselves and serving with our community?
· Feel more united, Happier, Influence those around us for good, Love for those we serve
President J. Reuben Clark Jr.: “Giving has … brought … a feeling of common brotherhood as men of all training and occupation have worked side by side in a Welfare garden or other project.”4 The feelings of unity will multiply the good effects of the service you give. And those feelings of unity in families, in the Church, and in communities will grow and become a lasting legacy long after the project ends.
Thomas S. Monson shared poem.
I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.
