Feeling prompted to do more to reach out.

[Jenamarie]

Okay, so I've got a lot of the personal "thou shalt" commandments down fairly well (personal prayer, loving family, attending church and the Temple, etc.) but the "thou shalts" that include reaching out to others could use some improvement. I'll tie a quilt at an RS activity, and take a meal to a new mom in the ward, but otherwise I feel like I'm keeping my help limited to people within my immediate circle (which is mostly just church friends), and only when the opportunity is placed in my lap. I want to do more for those beyond my comfort zone, and put myself out there a bit more to help those who are in need.

But where do I start? I have limited time to volunteer (being a SAH, homeschooling mom), but I also don't want to just "throw money" at things (but will, if that's my only current viable option, especially since I know most charities can do more with monetary donations than with donation of items.)

So what do you do to help lift the downtrodden, feed the widow, love thy neighbor, etc. as the Savior has asked us to do? Cuz I'm drawing a blank.

[pam]

Excellent subject for discussion. Sometimes just being a listening ear is a huge thing.

[ryanh]

In a number of talks, Elder Bednar has commented on how his wife does it. She prays for discernment and eyes to see who can use her help.

[Obolus]

In July I moved into my current ward. Instead of waiting for a calling, I went straight to the clerks office and requested a ward list. I then took that ward list to the Relief Society president and went through it with her to determine who was active, inactive, and unknown. I then took that list to the ward mission leader & bishop to verify what had been determined by the RS president. The results were that over half of the ward list were unknowns.

I was then immediately called as a ward missionary. We began a systematic search for all of the unknowns in our ward. The high priests and elders wanted in, so we divided the work thus. We have since found 80+ move-outs and invited about 50 others to come back to church, informing them of the new meeting time. One lady that we visited came to church on Christmas and afterward had a positive meeting with our bishop.

To leave the 99 and go after the 1, you have to be brave enough to actually knock on someone's door. But once you get past that, anyone can do much to serve their ward.

[Guest]

I help out in my kids' schools. No, I didn't run for office in the PTA. This year, I'm not even a PTA member. But, I'm the go-to person for my sons' teachers. "Ms Anatess, we're running out of wide-ruled lined paper and No. 2 pencils, can you help me get the parents to bring in some?"... "Ms Anatess, can you manage the Accelerated Reader testing?"... "Ms Anatess, can you escort some kids on the field trip to the zoo?"... and the last one I got just yesterday... "Ms Anatess, can you write an article about our classroom project for the newspaper?".

I'm telling ya, it may not sound important to be the class-do-girl, but there's a lot of sacrifice I do to support the schools and the satisfaction I feel is great knowing that I have freed up the teachers to do what they are there for - teach.