Lesson on Service

Today I taught the lesson on service, chapter 14 in the GBH manual in my Relief Society. My synopsis and thoughts of how the lesson went are below!

I opened with the lesson’s well-run story of GBH’s mission experience: him arriving sick and being mostly rejected by those he tries to teach. He writes to his father, tells him of his woes, and his father writes back “Forget yourself and go to work.” I asked the women what kinds of service there are and we came up with family history work, manual labor, emotional labor, providing food; eventually someone commented that almost anything can be construed as service, from a smile and holding the door open to filling a need someone requests. I agreed, even though I sometimes think it’s too simplistic to always qualify smiling and holding doors open for people as service. One woman brought up how she has been performing service at times, but has had a self-centered mentality to it, a “If I’m a good person and good people serve, then I need to serve I just need to find someone….” and how she thought she might’ve been smothering in her attempts. She brought up the point of intentions needing to be in line to perform true service.

I took her comment of intent and brought in the ideas of having charity and being of service – if there was any difference between the two, how are they different, how do they intersect? One woman made a beautiful comment, in that charity is an attitude that we strive to incorporate into our character, and service is the expression of that charity. The intent and the act; I thought it was wonderful.

I then asked the women if it can be considered service if we are good at it or if we are being compensated in someway (and we know about the compensation beforehand: jobs, internships, networking, connections, exchanged goods, etc). One woman brought in the parable of the talents – how we are supposed to use our gifts and abilities and they’ll be magnified. At which point I posited, “Can you give of something that you don’t have?” They seemed to take a minute to think, as it seemed to be a new concept. The discussion then turned to how we are all made to have strengths in certain areas, and that it is good for us to develop those areas. One woman brought up how her friend in the presidency checked in on her because she’s been having a rough time, and that she was thankful her friend used her talent of emotional labor with her, that she felt served by her friend utilizing her abilities. At this point I brought up that I’m actually terrible at emotional labor, despite being a woman, and that something so natural to her friend was something that was a conscious, often difficult thing for me.

A visiting mother then spoke up and gave a wonderful analogy that tied a lot of things together: when you go to a toolbox or kitchen you’re looking for specific tools to do specific things. That pizza cutters cut pizzas and salad spinners spin salad. The tools are made differently, and each tool operates exactly as it’s supposed to. I then asked the somewhat ridiculous question of, “And do we ever get mad at salad spinners for not cutting pizza?” Everyone laughed, but also agreed. That we don’t get mad at inanimate objects for failing to perform something they aren’t meant to perform, and that we can extend that attitude towards people.

I ended the lesson with the idea of “Whosoever seeketh to save her life shall lose it; she that loseth her life, for my sake, shall have everlasting life” I gave the question, “What are we willing to lose about ourselves through service?” It was an abstract concept and was a bit difficult for both me to explain it well and for them to understand it. I used the kitchen analogy again saying, “If we believe we’re pizza cutters, but we’re really salad spinners, what sorts of beliefs do we have to confront in order to truly realize what we are so that we can begin to develop our abilities?” (we had talked about how self-development and self-awareness are worthwhile endeavors to pursue so that we can be our best to help others). I gave them the earlier example of myself of how I had to confront the assumption that I already was good at relationships to be able to find out that I actually am not that great. And by actively engaging in work/activities/in this case relationships, I was able to find that out. But that we needed to get ourselves into those kinds of situations to see what we are made of inside ourselves. I concluded with giving them volunteermatch.org, as justserve.org has paltry opportunities in my neck of the woods. I also plugged it as being a good opportunity for adult job shadowing, as it were. That if you keep having an inkling to get involved in something, but have no idea how, that volunteering is a good opportunity to learn about something for yourself and to give others what they need.

I thought it went really well. I initially had apprehensions about the lesson because it seemed too simple or overdone. I didn’t want to give my sisters a decree of “Make sure you’re serving every opportunity!” I wanted to help cultivate the belief that they have gifts and abilities that they’re empowered to develop and use for theirs and others’ benefit.