Service is Kind of Awesome.

In my church, we have a children's song that goes something like, "When we're helping we're happy and we sing as we go."  It's a cute/dumb little song, but I think it teaches a great message, and how great is it that we're knocking that into little kid's heads before they grow into selfish, always-too-busy adults?

I'll be honest, I was never exactly singing as I went when I got roped into service activities throughout my teen years.  Some teenagers are notorious for beings self-centered know-it-alls and I definitely was no exception.  It always seemed inconvenient to me to take time out of my important schedule of video games and guitar playing for the sake of chopping wood or pulling weeds for someone else.  Why couldn't they get someone else to do it?  After all, I lead a busy life.  There's got to be someone out there with nothing to do that would be willing to devote their time to helping someone else.

I didn't realize until later that service actually enriches the life of the person doing the serving.

I served a two-year LDS mission in Boston Massachusetts and the surrounding area.  I was about to go home in the winter of 2012, and in October, Superstorm Sandy crashed into the east coast.  During the time, I was in New Haven, Connecticut, which wasn't too far from some areas like Fairfield Beach that saw a lot of destruction.

As a mission--which was over 200 Mormon missionaries, mind you--we coordinated a massive service effort to storm the neighborhoods of coastal Connecticut and offer our cleanup services for absolutely free.  We did it over the course of a weekend.  And guess what I found out?

Service is awesome.

It was incredible to see the happy faces of people who would typically be so irritated with our message of Jesus Christ.  We didn't preach to them unless they wanted to hear it.  Our mission for the weekend was simply to serve, whether it meant demolition, cleaning out water-damaged materials from homes, shoveling out basements and driveways, or whatever.

Cute little palm tree salt shaker, right?  I don't even remember the lady's name that gave it to me.  We were hauling out a bunch of water damaged materials from her house and putting them on the street.  I think I just said in passing that I liked that salt shaker... so she gave it to me!  Totally insisted on it--a small token of her thanks.  I keep it where I can see it every day as a reminder of how good I felt that day.  Sunup to sundown we just helped people.  Seriously.  I don't think I've ever felt more tired or more satisfied on a single day of my life.

You can totally feel that too, so go help someone!  It doesn't have to be big, just go do something nice for someone else!  Especially if you're struggling with life.  Yes, you. The best remedy for a weary soul is some spirited service, in my humble opinion.  After all, the world could always use some more good, and a little bit on our part can go a long way for someone else.

Just saying.


-Aaron