December 12, 2016 Where Shall YOU Work Today?

Great baptism this week!

This week was fire with referrals from members! the families here in Maraza are really doing their part in helping us teach other families that they know. It is always great to work with members and see how the members re-kindle their joy for the Gospel as they share their own stories and experiences of how they changed their lives. 

In church this week we learned something super cool. We were talking about how we shouldn´t seek to serve people just because we might get recognized, but we should seek to serve people because we sincerely desire to help others. We cannot keep doing things just to please other people and try and look good. Doing that leads to pride.

Now if we are having a sincere desire to help other people or to do something good and happen to be seen or acknowledged or praised for it, it´s chill. As long as we keep doing things for the right reasons.

This kind of made me think about my own little prideful self.. Growing up playing soccer I never wanted to play defense because they never got to score the goals. I only wanted to play in the coolest positions where I thought I would be seen by others and praised for it. 

Also when the time came to play in a tournament or something I would get very frustrated if we were assigned to play on a field in the very corner of the complex or somewhere where no was could see that i was playing. I only wanted to play where there would be a lot of people watching. 

Maybe that´s not the worst thing ever, but what was probably not so good about it is that I was more focused on those aspects of "who was watching me" rather than playing my best because i wanted to help my team. 

This makes me think about a poem I found a while back talking about this concept in gospel terms:

Father, where shall I work today?
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed out a tiny spot
And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh no; not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done;
Not that little place for me.”
And the word He spoke, it was not stern;
He answered me tenderly:
“Ah, little one, search that heart of thine.
Art thou working for them or for me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.”
--Meade McGuire

Christmas time is coming up. 

What are your desires? 

Are we doing good things to look good in front of others?

Are we focused on what really matters?

Do something nice for someone, and don´t tell anyone about it. 

It´s much better this way!

We need not serve to please. Come what may, we need only serve.