The very best way to feel Jesus this year
This works for me every time :)
When my youngest sister, Ellie, received her first ministering assignment, she was a little hesitant. She was 14, her companion was our mom, and they ministered to a few adult sisters who lived on our street.
Ellie felt a little weird about the whole idea of talking to strangers that weren’t even close to her age and whom she had nothing in common with. All very understandable.
But I wasn’t about to let Ellie miss out on building the life-beautifying habit of being a consistent ministering sister. So to try and warm her up more to the idea, I jokingly provided her with a list of “ministering rules” that if followed would make ministering a cinch:
Don’t call anyone fat while ministering to them.
Do your best to not noticeably burp or pass gas. (If you do either of those things, just laugh—maybe it will be a bonding experience.)
Don’t steal anything from their home.
Don’t sneeze in their face.
My intent with this silly list was to try and show Ellie that, really, there aren’t rules to ministering. You don’t need to identify as a social butterfly, know how to make cookies, or really fit any sort of mold. All you need to do is start with small acts of kindness and wait for the Lord to work His miracles.
When I was a Relief Society president organizing ministering assignments, I started to think of myself as the “anti-loneliness coordinator” because to me, that seemed to be what these assignments were all about: carefully, deliberately eliminating as much loneliness as possible in our ward.
And I was amazed how often a sincere friendship was what was needed to bring a relationship with Christ to life—both in the receiver and the giver.
In fact, I am thoroughly convinced that being a dedicated ministering sister is one of the best ways to meet the Savior. King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon asked a really good question when he said, “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” (Mosiah 5:13.)
If you want to come to know the Savior, you are going to need to serve Him. Ministering will allow you to see how kind His thoughts are and how full of love His heart is.
You may not see that with every assignment you have through your life, but I promise ministering is going to be a beautiful journey if you stick with it long enough. Not every companionship and every effort is going to result in a deeply spiritual experience, but some of them will—and you don’t want to risk missing that.
I’d like to share two ministering stories that I am forever grateful are written into my life story. Experiences that seemed to wipe away the dust and grime of everyday living and let me glimpse, let me feel, how clean and bright and right God and His Son are.
Let’s begin with the day that I, thanks to ministering, came to believe in a God so tender, He delivers flowers.
Death and Daffodils
(I first shared this story on ldsliving.com. You can find a slightly longer version of the article here.)
I have always loved receiving flowers. I think the temporary, somewhat frivolous nature of the gift is what makes it special—I’m touched to be given something beautiful even when the giver knows it won’t last very long or serve any real purpose.
A few years ago, my grandpa died. Many family members and friends sent beautiful flowers to my family when they heard the news, but the bouquet that meant the most to me was delivered only hours after Grandpa’s death. It was small, wilted, and held together by a brown rubber band, but in my eyes, it was a personal delivery from God.
My grandpa had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years. His death was a long, painful process, and my family was exhausted from the care he required.
Because he had lived with us for the last few years of his life, my siblings and I were very close with him. The freezer was always loaded with chocolate swirl ice cream when Grandpa was with us because in Grandpa’s mind there should never be a limit on ice cream, especially for his grandkids. And when that was all he could be convinced to swallow near the end of his life? We sat and ate chocolate swirl ice cream with him.
On the day he died, I was living away from home attending college. My mom told me in the morning that he had passed. Despite how abnormal the day became after that, I had to attend to my normal, busy day of classes and work. I didn’t say anything about his death to anyone. I made it through the day, but that evening I was emotionally spent.
As soon as I walked into the safety of my apartment that night, my eyes were full of tears. A few minutes after closing the door behind me, I heard a quiet knock. I debated not answering, but when the knock repeated itself, I pulled the door open.
Standing on my doorstep was one of my ministering sisters with a handful of dying daffodils fashioned into a bouquet with a rubber band.
Before I could even speak, she started apologizing. She said she had meant to drop the flowers off days ago, but since she waited, they had wilted, and she had been hesitant to bring them over in their droopy state.
But to me, those flowers couldn’t have looked more beautiful. She was completely unaware that my grandpa had passed away that morning, and yet, the flowers came exactly on the day I needed them.
In my eyes, those flowers were a direct delivery from Heavenly Father. I had never told my ministering sister how much I love flowers, but Heavenly Father knew. Those flowers were evidence that He was aware of my family’s situation and that was enough to comfort me. I wasn’t given any directions on what to do next, but I knew that I wouldn’t be figuring it out alone.
Now I believe in a God so loving and so personal that He delivers flowers—we just have to open the door and let Him in to receive them.
And Heavenly Father has a lot more to send us than just flowers—He has some pretty beautiful things to teach us about what His Son is like and how merciful and glorious Their plan of salvation is for us. A glory I came to see with clearer, more humble eyes when a ministering assignment led me to planning a funeral for the first time.
To the Temple Steps
Planning a funeral is not something leaders of a young single adult ward ever expect to do. But when a member of our ward passed away unexpectedly, and her family asked us to organize a service for her, my friends and I looked at each other as we sat in ward council and asked if anyone knew the first thing about ordering flowers.
I was the Relief Society president at the time and was shocked when I heard the news about Alyssa’s death (name has been changed). I knew she was in poor health, but she’d always seemed to be in poor health, and I hadn’t heard about any new developments.
Alyssa had been in our ward since before I’d moved in two years ago. She struggled with a myriad of health problems, including a rare degenerative skin disease that had resulted in the loss of one of her arms. She also struggled with severe depression. Every time I saw her I worried because she looked weak and her appearance was somewhat unkempt.
Alyssa lived in a housing unit for people with serious mental illness and because she could not drive, required a ride to every Church-related function she wanted to come to, which was most of them.
Besides that, she was frequently in and out of the hospital and needed transportation to and from her appointments. It seemed that every week our bishop was reaching out for someone to help Alyssa through her most recent crisis or run some sort of errand for her. I don’t know her family situation, but they seemed relatively unavailable to help address these almost daily needs.
Rather than just having one ministering companionship assigned to Alyssa, we assigned a whole team of ward members. But it never seemed like enough. I hope you’ll be patient with me when I say that Alyssa felt like a problem that would never be solved. A point of stress for me and the whole ward with no end in sight. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help her; it just was that her problems felt far beyond any help I could offer.
But then she died. There was no long hospital stay, no warning, she was just suddenly gone.
Because it didn’t seem like my place to ask, I am unsure of the exact cause of her death; her obituary said she passed away at home.
I thought a lot about Alyssa for months afterward. I was trying to come to terms with the seemingly deep unfairness of her short and difficult life. Why would something so sad happen?
The only way I found some peace was by the thought of the lasting spiritual blessing Alyssa, and others who have debilitating long-term struggles, provide for the people around them. To explain what I mean, I’d like to take you back to the only time I visited Alyssa’s apartment in the year that I was her Relief Society president.
Our bishop had put in an order with Deseret Industries (DI) for Alyssa to receive a new mattress and box frame, and he needed someone to go pick it up and deliver it to her. I volunteered to load the stuff in my truck bed and then drop it off. I imagined the whole excursion taking less than an hour. It took much longer.
I recruited three friends to help me at the last minute, and we pulled up at a DI on a Friday night. Our plan was to hurry and get this done for Alyssa and then go have fun with the rest of our evening.
As we waited for DI workers to bring out the mattress and box frame, the sky darkened, and snow began to fall. I looked at my friends with concern and asked if we should stop and do this another day since anything in the truck bed would get snowed on during the drive over. We considered abandoning the project, but since we all wanted to get this done now and the mattress was wrapped in thick plastic, we loaded everything up, strapped it down, and drove the 15 minutes over to Alyssa’s apartment.
In the short time it took us to do that, the snow began falling hard. Northern Utah was playing that sneaky trick on us when it decides to have a blizzard in the late spring. The sky grew dark, and huge, wet, slushy snowflakes fell from the sky. Wind blew the flakes into our eyes. My light jacket and sandals left me totally unprepared for this turn in the weather.
We had to park on the road adjacent to her housing unit, and by the time we got inside, the plastic covering on the mattress was blanketed in snow. While we waited by the check-in desk to figure out how to get it up to Alyssa’s room, water leaked all over the hallway. We were eventually told which way to go, so the two men I’d recruited to help me, crammed themselves and the mattress in the large elevator while my other friend and I hurried back outside to bring in the metal bed frame as well as new sheets and pillows.
With every trip from the truck, the tile hallways grew more soaked and slippery, and I could only smile apologetically at the person working the reception desk. Other residents of the building wandered past us in the hallway, looking suspiciously at all the wet commotion. None of them appeared to be in great health, and I began to worry about what would happen if someone slipped and hurt themselves.
Once we’d managed to get everything to the fourth floor, Alyssa let us into her room, and I stifled a gag. There was trash and dirty clothes everywhere, and the smell of body odor was inescapable. We stepped into the room, and I realized we had another problem: her old bed was still there, and we had to move it and dispose of it somehow before we could get the new one in.
The sight of the old mattress made my heart sink for Alyssa—it was small, sagging, stained, and depressingly thin. While the boys worked on carrying the old bed out and figuring out what to do with it, I surveyed the room. It was a one open space with a bathroom attached. A small kitchen lined a wall and the counters were piled high with dishes and wrappers.
Alyssa apologized for the mess and told us that the usual people from the facility that come to help her clean hadn’t showed up that week. My friend and I assured her it was not a big deal and offered to help clean up a bit. With her encouragement, I found a broom and swept up underneath where the new bed would be placed, not allowing myself to dwell on the number of dead insects and used Band-aids I was pushing into a pile.
While we worked, my friend and I asked Alyssa questions about her pet cat and some of the pictures in the room. I learned Alyssa loved Marvel and that a poster hanging on her wall had been hung up by one of her ministering brothers. Alyssa talked about how awesome those ministering brothers were, and it warmed my heart to think of them over here with her. We talked about tacos, Alyssa’s favorite food, and debated which kinds are best.
The men came back, and we all got to work assembling the bed frame and then making the bed. The new clean sheets, pillow, and blankets stood in stark contrast with the rest of the room.
With an enthusiastic “ta-da!” we presented Alyssa with the new bed, chatted for maybe two more minutes, and then made our way back down the wet hallways and drove carefully home about three hours later through heavy snow fall.
Alyssa would use that new bed for two and a half months before she passed away. And our Friday night excursion in the snow came to feel like a very small thing.
Soon after Alyssa’s death, I was reading in Acts 3 and was surprised to find an example of people who were serving someone with a debilitating health situation the way my ward had been. Verse two tells us a bit about what was going on:
“And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple.”
The description of this man immediately turned my thoughts to Alyssa. He was someone who needed a ride daily, someone who had friends or family who did that for him. He, too, sounds like someone who probably would have had a team of ministers assigned to him. Someone who may have been a point of stress for a Relief Society president or bishop: Who was going to take him to the temple today? Who was going to pick up him up later? Who was checking in on his health or meals or all the other routine tasks of living that become monstrous when physical or mental capacities are suffering?
Next, my mind lingered on the phrase “whom they laid daily” Who was “they?” Whoever “they” were had carried this lame man every day, likely with no hope of seeing improvement or change for their friend. And where did they take him? The gates of the temple. That means that every day one of these friends also went to the temple and was perhaps reminded of God.
As I pondered that scripture, the Spirit began to help me see the way my fellow ward members and I were being taught something about the nature of the Savior’s unending love with every ride given and every meal provided for Alyssa. As we served her, we were reminded of the way the Savior is always willing to come to our aid, no matter how deep or lasting the problem.
I think I can say that for all of us, whether in life or death, Alyssa brought us closer to the Savior. She helped us see with awesome clarity the need for a Savior who will one day make all wrongs right; who will one day heal all wounds. She made the promise that in the Resurrection “every limb and joint shall be restored to its body” even more beautiful and needful to us. She gave us the opportunity to have our hearts changed by consistently serving not because of the promise of reward or even the satisfaction of seeing improvement, but because it was simply the right thing to do.
Alyssa was a gift to us, figuratively bringing us over and over to the gates of the temple, to reminders of the gift of Jesus Christ. Because of that, and many other reasons I feel confident God knows about, I now feel that the difficulties of her life were not for nothing.
I find peace in accepting that while we are not always able to change someone’s difficult circumstances, the Savior will be the one to make everything OK in the end—just like he did when through the priesthood power held by his Apostles, he healed that lame man at the temple gates and sent him off “leaping, and praising God.”
I never did say it to her in this life, so I want to say it now: Thank you, Alyssa. I’m glad you were in our ward.
Your opportunities to minister, should you choose to accept them, will of course look different from mine. Some assignments may lead to a deep friendship or touching spiritual experience, others may not. But it is our consistency of doing little things that is going to build up our testimonies and expand our capacity to love. I want to end with this beautiful quote from President Jean B. Bingham who was a Relief Society General President. As you read this, tell me it doesn’t spark a little something inside you, nudging you to live just a little bit more like the Savior did:
“Sometimes we think we have to do something grand and heroic to ‘count’ as serving our neighbors. Yet simple acts of service can have profound effects on others—as well as on ourselves. What did the Savior do? Through His supernal gifts of the Atonement and Resurrection . . . ‘none other has had so profound an influence [on] all who have lived and who will yet live upon the earth.’ But He also smiled at, talked with, walked with, listened to, made time for, encouraged, taught, fed, and forgave. He served family and friends, neighbors and strangers alike, and He invited acquaintances and loved ones to enjoy the rich blessings of His gospel. Those ‘simple’ acts of service and love provide a template for our ministering today.”
So remember the “ministering rules” I gave to my sister Ellie, and then just start. Don’t worry about perfection or how it is all going to go. Just begin now and watch the (inner and outer) miracles unfold.