Service

I like our "new" ward quite a bit but since we have moved into it I have felt that it isn't as closely bonded as our old ward was. Maybe it had something to do with the old ward being a relatively young ward with a lot of students in it. But what I feel like made the biggest difference is that we were constantly receiving emails of opportunities to serve others in our ward. We would get emails when someone needed dinners, when someone needed rides, when someone needed prayers, if someone needed help cleaning/moving etc. And people would respond, boy would people respond. If you didn't get an email back to them within a couple of hours of receiving the email then everything would already have been taken care of.

Our ward was close. I loved knowing who people were and that there were always people I could help out even if it was just by saying a prayer for them. I knew that if I ever needed anything, I could ask and it would be taken care of. If the people within the ward are feeling like they don't know each other, I think one of the best things you can do is to give them the opportunity to serve. Let them loose themselves in serving others.

I have found especially for myself that when I am feeling depressed or tired the best thing to help is to go serve someone. I remember as a kid that we would take cookies out to people frequently. We often did this for our service family night. I always thought it was funny when my dad would ask, "so, who do you think needs cookies tonight?". My thought was always, "does anyone actually NEED cookies?". haha. Now I realize that it was not the cookies that they needed but everything that came with the cookies. The love that was shown, the thought that was put into it, the opportunity to show someone that we were thinking of them and loving them. That they weren't alone. That someone cared. So now my question to you is, "who do you know that needs cookies?".