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Service

10/17/2017

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​HOMEWORK: 
  • Elder Lynn Robbins May 2011 “What Manner of Men & Women Ought Ye To Be?”  Focus on what we have been talking about…pride and ‘praise’ article as you read this.  How does this dove tail into it.  Our focus is what are the things we need to do.  We need to change our focus to what we need to be. What Christlike attribute would you like them to have?  It’s the attitude and what we want them to become. 
 
These are the ones that all come as the ‘antedote’ for pride and contention.  These will put the Spirit in your home. 
 
What is service?  What do you think about? 
 
Class member answers…
  • Letting go of our own needs and looking for needs of others
  • Doing things for others they couldn’t do for themselves
  • Giving of your time
  • 50% of the time doing something I don’t want to do for someone else.  I feel like I’m guilted into doing that.  How do I fit that in?

I’m glad you said that.  A lot of us ‘do’ service.  We ‘do’ the job.  Our first thing goes to ‘why I can’t do it.’.  Or why I should do it.  I want you to see that it’s more than doing a deed.  The reason I want you to see that is because as we teach our family it has to be more than doing the deed to affect them for good.  It has to be more than doing the deed. 
 
Service is a condition of the heart when you do the behavior. It doesn’t come naturally.  When you raise them in a world of entitlement it’s even harder.  Are my friends going to be there?  Is it going to be hard?  I don’t want to do it.  This is the world they are living in.  You are responsible to parent them out of it because the world will not parent them out of it.  You need to parent them to a heart of charity.
 
First thing is to get the vision of what you want.  
 
It takes year to train them into that spot!! It doesn’t come in one event.  It comes in multiple events.  You have to do it with them not just you sending them out to do it.  They watched him take ‘any’ job.  Nothing was beneath him. 
 
These types of events help children appreciate the giving and the receiving. 
 
Class member:  You have to be willing to let your family be served by others.  When my twins were born I was on bedrest for 2 weeks in the hospital and then in the NICU.  One of my best friends took my kids to school everyday in another town for 6 weeks.  I’m amazed that one situation has made my oldest son sign up for everything.  He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end.  We have to allow them to be served. 
 
We do need to volunteer ourselves and our kids not just for the ‘necessary’ things, but for things that are just volunteer.  Tracy’s family were always the last ones in the kitchen doing dishes after an assignment.  It’s the attitude over years that ‘this is what we do’. 
 
You have to display the spirit of ‘this is great!  Aren’t we blessed to have the opportunity to serve?” We want to teach them that service is a way of life.
 
Class member:  As a convert (her Mom) really saw the blessing of Relief Society Sisters and what they can do.  My Mom’s friend had breast cancer and got really ill.  She was a young mother with little kids.  My Mom would go bathe her and take care of her.  When my Mom left our house other RS sisters would come to our house and help us because her family was being taken care of.  What a powerful thing that these sisters together can do.
 
The question is… “Where is your personal heart??? And how do you teach this heart to your children.” 
 
Class member:  I have loved service.  A couple of years ago when I was turning 27 we are doing a random act of kindness for 27 days before my birthday.  We took cookies to the firestation, or leave balloons in the park, or pay for the person behind us in the drive through.  My kids love it.
 
It has to grow to those things that aren’t fun!  When you have an opportunity to serve and it’s not fun this is where the hard part is.  It has to go past ‘fun’, but that we have the same attitude in the ‘hard and not fun’ things. 
 
Some of you have been blessed with the divine gift of charity.  One of the visuals of that gift is the love of serving.  That is the fruit of having that gift.  It says we don’t have all the gifts, but you pray to have that gift.  That gift is bestowed.  You need to ask ‘how to magnify’ that one.  We still have to help the gifts we have grow and bloom.  This is an important value to teach in your family.  It has to be taught.
 
When given an opportunity to just get right down and do it sometimes we balk.  We want to do service on our time table in our own way when it works for us. 
 
This is a Service Continuum (pg 84)
 
I wanted to know where I was on the spiritual line.  Am I getting spiritual or am I just doing stuff?  I spent a lot of time praying about it.  I needed a visual a report card.  I didn’t just need a blessing that says Heavenly Father loves you.  This service continuum was what was given to me. 
 
Service is the heart of spirituality.   If you take the attribute of service and the condition of your heart that was a good indication of where I was spiritually.  Doing ‘things’ I wasn’t necessarily becoming spiritual. 
 
I think we fluctuate on some events.  We may do better in our church calling that in our marriage.  Our marriage might be good, but parenting is hard for us. 
 
Level 1:  I Won’t
The sign up sheet goes around and I won’t do it.  I won’t work in the nursery.  I’ve done my time there.  I won’t do primary music.  This person actually stops themselves from growing.  This person is part of this world of entitlement.  I expect things to come in, but I’m not willing to have things go out.  I’m offended if no one notices me and takes care of me.  It’s a one way street.  We can be teaching the ‘talk’ in our families, but it isn’t changing heart.
 
Example:  We were in Relief Society and we had a lesson on compassionate service and love.  It was an amazing lesson.  The teacher was right on.  The lady behind me raised her hand and made a very profound comment.  At the end of the lesson the RS President stood up and said, “We have a lady that is not a member of the church, who just had a baby and the same day she had an aneurism and she is critical.  They just moved here.  They don’t know anyone.  The Dad has to work and be free to go to the hospital.”   The lady that made this comment behind me said, “Why would they ask us to do that?  She’s not even a member of our ward.”  I went up after church and had that baby for 6 weeks.  It was so hard when the Dad came to take that baby home. 
 
Level 2: I Have To
Yes…I’ll take that dinner in.  It’s a heaviness of heart.  It’s ridden on guilt.  The martyrdom syndrome.  This is a Laman & Lemuel.  Sometimes you do keep the commandments, but there is a definite…”I have to! My Mom made me.”  They feel unappreciated.  They feel abused a little bit.  It’s about how we feel.  Do we call on the same people?  Yes. 
 
Class member:  “The most important service is the inconvenient service” President Uchtdorf. 
 
Example:  pg 80—story
 
What they were asked to do didn’t change, but how they did it changed.  They actually moved up to this next level.  Anytime you find yourself in one of these places the goal is to move up to the next level.  This is progressive…line upon line.  It is a choice!  You pray for a paradigm shift. 
 
Class member:  We take turns saying family prayer at night.  My 5 year old has started fighting with us about it.  Why do I have to do it?  I keep telling her ‘we get to pray’. 
 
At a different time I would sit down and have a talk about what a privilege it is to pray to Heavenly Father and he knows us and answers us.  It would break my heart if I didn’t want to talk to me.  I wonder if that is how he feels.
 
Level 3:  I Will…
This is a big step.  You have a desire to do it.  You are dependable.  You like to be noticed for doing it.  You want someone to appreciate it.  You do it because you want to do what’s right, not necessarily because you love the other person.  You are doing it out of the spirit of duty. 
 
Example:  ‘Story’ in syllabus pg 81
 
You aren’t going to look out for extras. 
 
Level 4:  I Want to…
This is where your love of people starts.  I see that they are hurting and I want to help them.  I want to lift a burden.  You look for ways to help.  You reach out to these YW.  You love these people.  You do extra things for your children and for you marriage.  Do you see the energy in this level.  You are doing a lot of good things. 
 
Level 5: May I…
What’s the difference between the humanitarian programs of the world and the humanitarian programs of the church?  We are all reaching out and trying to alleviate needs.  The answer was profound.  The answer was these humanitarian projects and people because they love people and they can’t stand seeing people suffer.  They want to alleviate this pain.  Then he said the reason we do it is because we love the Lord and want to serve the Lord by serving his children. 
 
It is a privilege to serve anyone because I am so in debt.  Every opportunity to serve becomes a blessing not a burden.  I am on the ‘Lord’s errand’.  It’s not something to do, it’s because I love the Lord I am grateful and I owe you so much for the Atonement.  I can never repay the debt. 
 
This is all based on your depth and understanding of the love of the Savior.  Being challenged to study the attributes of Christ and memorize The Living Christ.  We will have to step up in helping those who are serving.  This suffering is going to increase.  Our desire to serve will naturally increase and we become more prepared to help those who need help.
 
Class member:  Sister Hinkley said, ““I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.” 
Page 83  (Quote)
 
We aren’t seeking opportunities because we love the Lord.  We will lose opportunities to serve.  We have to seek to become the ‘Lord here am I send me!’ It has to be a way of life.  It only comes as they get involved in these experiences.  They grow to be inconvenient experiences. 
 
This is the season.  BUT every day of the year ‘is the season’.
 
HOMEWORK:
Do a hard service project with your family.  It has to be family effort not parental dictation.  I want it to be hard.  It doesn’t have to be physically hard.  It has to be hard for your family.
 
It may be that you visit a nursing home every Sunday until Christmas.  It’s about Heavenly Father who needs us?  You need to pray about it.  I want it to hurt. 
 
If you take a needy family for Christmas don’t take the money out of your pocket or budget.  It needs to be more than just buying toys and taking them in. 
 
I want it to be hard!
 
I want it to be because you love the Savior and this is your gift to him by helping one of his children.  It won’t be easy if you choose to do it.  Some of you will say I won’t do it.  That’s ok.  Look at it on the Service Spectrum.
 
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    Carleen Tanner

    Notes from classes and other information will be posted here.  Also you can order syllabus and CDs from the store or check out the "Traditions" that class members have shared.  You can also ask a Parenting and/or Marriage Question.

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