Service with a Smile

Elder Smith and I -
on exchanges with him last Thursday.
We did Moments with Missionaries together.

 More than one person has come to stay here in the mission.

Just last week we got another batch of missionaries. A bunch who served in Brazil, New Zealand and Australia. Unfortunately I have only met a few and only got to know them for a second or two. So I don't really have any cool stories to share.

One thing worth mentioning - we had the first sacrament together as a district. Meaning that it was more than the 4 of us in the apartment, which is exiting for us.

We have had a ton of service this past week, I actually never thought we could do it, but we managed to get 10 hours of service. Most of it was gardening. The other was hauling rocks. The gardening consisted of us helping out a less active family in our ward. This family has lots of work for us to do. They have been working on their garden for a good while and it doesn't help that the local deer keep eating all their flowers.

Service with the Apartment

They have a neighbor who is 89 and is also trying to fight the deer and keep them from eating everything she grows. Just the other day she took a bad fall and since then every chance we get we come over and assist her in her gardening endeavors. It's a little slow but we follow her directions to the letter, and at the end she always says that we are a God send.

The other day we got a call from some great members, saying that their new neighbor needed help hauling rocks for their garden. At this time we were kinda bummed, because what was supposed to be our service for the day canceled on us. So we were giddy to hear that we could still do something.  It was fun, but at the end she had more rocks she had to move our of her backyard, she forgot to mention that they were more like boulders. We had to make a massive effort to roll them onto a wheel barrow and dump them elsewhere. 

Elder Searle, likes to each Oreos with milk,
but the cream fell out

At the beginning of our week we did some calf exercises. We live on the top apartment, and we have a no small number of stairs to climb each day. We decided to do 5 calve raises on each stair. Once we made it to the top, we went back down and made our way up again. But we spiced things up. We did 5 pigon toe calve raises on each stair. Then we went down AGAIN and did 5 duck calve raises on each stair. We were exhausted at the end of it, but it had much further reaching effects than we realized. 

That day we couldn't straighten our legs, our calves were too tight and we were in too much pain. To this day they are still a little sore. 

I decided to tell you this just so you could understand, for those 10 hours of service our legs were dying. We were walking around like old men and constantly stretching out our legs to no avail. 

I don't mean to complain a little but none of it was easy. However the great feeling we all got to help our others was entirely worth it. 

Look at what a prophet said about service in the Book of Mormon.

Mosiah 2:17

17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

Think about the peace that God will give you if you help out another who stands in need. Will you find the strength to overcome any problems you may be facing? You may find the inspiration that you need for your job or any other thing you could possibly think of.

Nice Sunset

I would like to challenge all of you to find a way to serve your neighbors. No matter how tedious or hard it may be. Just remember that we are serving the Lord as well when we make that choice. 

I have had the chance to serve many in the mission, and each time I loved it, and I knew God appreciated it. He has blessed me much for it and has allowed me to see many people come unto Christ and change their lives. You can see it too.

I say that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I don't know how many pictures I got this time round. I hope you like them.