Every six months our church holds a general conference where the members receive spiritual instruction, admonition and very timely advice from the leaders of our church. It is a worldwide event broadcast to millions. And it fills my well which always seems a little dry.
Last April Henry B. Eyring, an apostle, gave a talk entitled “Opportunities To Do Good (click here to read it)”. In it he invited the membership of the church to participate in a day of service during the coming year – something that would benefit our communities and touch not only the receivers of the service, but those doing the serving.
The governor or the state of Virginia heard about Elder Eyring’s invitation and decided to support the idea by declaring September 24th to be “Virginia Statewide Day of Service”.
On the 24th our entire family {right down to the little Owlie} joined with about 100 members of our church congregation to work on a very special project. There is a divine little boy in our congregation who is wheelchair bound. His name is Bridger – not by accident, I’m sure – because he builds bridges between us and Heaven. He and many of the other special needs children in our school district go to a new elementary school that has no playground to meet their needs. His mother is valiantly raising funds for a barrier free playground and our job on this day was to put up the retaining wall around the play area.
It was physical work. It was a hot day. But not one minute of it felt tough or was done begrudgingly. And there were teenagers present! Everyone wanted to do the job and do it right. We had Bridger and his friends on our minds.
Big C. worked pretty hard that day. He was there at 7:30 AM. When his baseball game got cancelled, he immediately asked if we could go back and work some more on the playground. I drove quickly while thanking God for a son with a heart to serve.
He ended up on the front page of our local newspaper as part of the coverage of the day of service:
As we drove home from our day of service, there was peace in the car – a VERY UNUSUAL FEAT for us. The kids were talking about everything we’d accomplished together. It really drove home this specific point from Elder Eyring’s conference talk:
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.
Two of our greatest desires for our children are that they learn to work hard and learn to love serving other people. This day made me and The Hubby feel like we might be doing alright with these offspring of ours.
Look who else worked hard:
Photo by Cindy Larson
The lesson we learned from our Day of service? That doing good for others just feels good.
6 comments:
That's the best family time there is: doing going for others all together. Big C made the cover for all the right reasons. Way to go!
Sure it might have been a nice experience to do all together as a family. And the project was so darling.
(I am working on translating my grandma's escudella recipe. I'll send it to you asap.)
I was so excited when I got the paper and saw Big C there. Should have congratulated you sooner! Great kids and a great project.
Awesome! I love giving service. It's the greatest feeling!
I just read a newspaper article that stated that serving others helps to relieve depression. “When we do good deeds, we’re rewarded by a dopamine pulse. It’s clear that helping others, even at low thresholds of several hours of volunteerism a week, creates mood elevation.”
I bet you guys felt good for days.
Nice work.
Inspired in Burke.
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