Serve Those Around You

The service activity on Saturday was a success! This is a combination of pictures from me and Phoebe. She was much more thorough in her recording of the event than I was.

Here's the food area:

And the service area, we added another service table after this was taken:

These were the dining tables, each associated with a different holiday or pair of holidays.

Here we have Memorial/Veteran's Day:

Day of the Dead, from a few angles:

Spring Equinox:

Thanksgiving:

Valentine's Day:

Christmas:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

These are the wall decorations, I'm sure you can tell which holiday each one goes with:

And the service projects themselves, starting with our wall of options:

The girls added some chalk art:

And here's the activity in full swing, plus a few finished ornaments to send to families who don't have any, the first done by Phoebe, the second by one of Topher's friends:

It was well attended and a lot of service was accomplished!

All the Holidays

I'm in charge of a ward service activity tomorrow. We're calling it A Year of Service in a Day and have seven different service options for people to help with, each connected to a different holiday. Cooper and Topher went to help me set up and decorate this afternoon and we ended up staying until nearly 10pm. We did detour to Walmart and Costco in the middle, but still, that's way too long. They were both really helpful and very good sports.

I hope people show up tomorrow.

Called, Again

Tonight something happened that Peter has been hoping for ever since he got his mission call in September.

He switched from a service mission to a teaching mission.

We got the word a few weeks ago that his request to transfer had been approved. We've spent the time since then trying to get him ready. Many errands were run today gathering all the needed items.

And then we drove him down to the mission home this evening and dropped him off.

There were tears, at least from those that were in the van as we drove away.

It was a mixture of happy and sad tears, but mostly joyful.

Off to the Temple

The Work of Christmas

Before we get to Christmas, the Saturday prior to Christmas was full of celebration. 

In the morning we had our ward Christmas party. After the movie nativity we made last year, I wanted to do something a little simpler. In March the idea came to me that all the Primary kids should draw pictures of the scenes of the nativity and we would put them on the wall like an art gallery. We asked the kids to draw them during singing time a few Sundays in November and December. But the last Sunday we planned to finish the project, church was canceled due to snow. We sent out a message to all parents of primary kids and asked them to have the kids do the final picture at home. We got fewer of that one, but the ones they did were awesome.

We set it up before the party started. I love how it turned out.

The first picture was of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

The second picture was of the angels and shepherds.

The final picture was of the Wise Men and the star.

When the party was over we rushed home and loaded up the car for our final kid choir performance of the season. We had been invited to sing downtown in a nearby city that is famous for its Christmas traditions. We sang to draw in crowds and bring their attention to an emergency shelter that our youth serve at once a month during the cold time of the year. Our set was about an hour long. We performed the same songs we'd done at the interfaith concert, as well as standard Christmas carols. Bryan came as the sound guy and set up the mics and speaker. Just as we were about to start we discovered that our entire file of audio tracks had disappeared. While my friend and I directed the singers, Bryan recreated the set list on the fly by remotely connecting to his desktop at home. He's amazing and I'm so thankful for him!

We were all chilly, but it was warmer than it had been for most of the week, a miracle that we were grateful for. Many of our singers couldn't be there, but we had some bonus singers in friends and siblings that joined us, so we had enough people to be heard! We performed in a courtyard next to an inn on a busy street for foot traffic. We had a steady audience the whole time, though not everyone stayed for all the songs. Those that listened seemed appreciative of what the kids were doing. And we're glad we could help the emergency shelter in their fundraising efforts.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

After our ukulele performance on Saturday, we had to scurry across the street for the next performance of the day. The intermediate school theatre troupe performed a ten minute set of Christmas songs. Sophie's teacher knew she was running from one gig to the next and said they would wait for her. But when we walked into the museum where they were performing we were told the room was full and we wouldn't be allowed in. Sophie finally told them that she was in the cast and they waved her up the stairs. She got there just as they were starting.

The rest of us had to convince the woman guarding the stairs that our children were the ones performing. She finally let us up, but we had to stay in a separate room. We could hear them, but we couldn't see them. Thankfully another mom took videos and shared them with me. The lone picture I have is a blurry screenshot from one of the videos.

From what we heard, they did a good job!

After they finished performing, the kids got in line for free hot chocolate and a donut. Then I handed Sophie off to a trusted mom friend so she could stay and take her turn volunteering at the hot chocolate table (a student government responsibility) and I took Phoebe and Topher to the next activity, with a quick detour for an even fancier donut.

Both Phoebe and Sophie had been asked to help with a three-hour free babysitting drop-off that a family in our old ward was hosting. Though I hadn't originally intended to, I dropped off Topher with Phoebe while I went back to get Sophie. When her shift was over (and we were both thoroughly frozen) I took her to help babysit too. Both girls held babies and enjoyed their service. Topher had a blast playing with his friends. It ended up being a giant primary-age Christmas party with pizza and crafts and games and treats. A good time was had by all.

After all that party food, Topher announced at the end of the day that he had had too much junk food and needed to just eat lettuce. We granted his request by eating chicken Caesar salad for dinner.

Service Through Song

On Sunday Cooper and Phoebe attended our old ward in the morning because they had a school chorus performance in the afternoon during our ward meetings. They had planned to come home after the morning meetings, change into their concert garb, and rest a bit before driving the fifteen minutes over to the retirement home where they were performing. But when we realized that meant they would miss the last ward choir practice before our concert that night, they changed plans. They still went to church in the morning, and they still changed into their concert clothes, but they moved much faster. Then they drove the thirty minutes to our church building just so they could practice with us. That was followed by a twenty-five minute drive to the high school performance. I'm thankful that they were willing to give up more of their time to serving in our ward choir.

I Hope They Call Me on a Mission

Peter was set apart on Sunday night as a service missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a wonderful, spiritual evening.

Earlier in the day he spoke in church about his upcoming service. He shared his talk with me so I could post it here:

Good afternoon brothers and sisters, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Peter. For the past year, I’ve been attending BYU in Utah. In preparation for my talk, I had a few thoughts to write down, but I quickly remembered that I haven’t given a talk in four to five years. I then found out what time I had, which was far greater than any talk I have given before. These two things quickly humbled me, and I hope that the spirit can take the few things I say and expand upon them in your hearts. I hope that I can gain much more experience talking in sacrament meetings over the next two years. After being humbled as I was, I decided to just speak of my experiences and my thoughts, however jumbled they may be, and pray that the spirit can guide me to say more if need be.

In the most recent General Conference a few weeks ago, Elder James E. Evanson gave a talk called Go and Do Likewise, in which he said “Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are modern-day examples of the good Samaritan that Christ invites us to become. I would like to highlight those missionaries who are called to service assignments. They are examples to us of how service (1) opens hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ, (2) allows all of us to minister regardless of our circumstances, and (3) brings the power of Christ into our lives.”

I have been called on a service mission, the kind that Elder Evanson highlighted. This means that over the next two or so years, I will be sacrificing my time and energy towards helping those in need. Whether that’s volunteering at food pantries or working in libraries, I will be serving my community and helping to bring the light of Christ into their lives.

It has been a long journey to get to where I am now, in deciding to serve a mission, and I am grateful for those who have been by my side through it. 

I would like to highlight one word from Elder Evanson’s talk, that word being “examples”.

It led me to think of three kinds of examples while writing this talk

The first example is that of the savior. He was the biggest example for us to follow, being baptized and living a life of love and service, taking care of the needy and the outcast. He taught us by word and by example to serve our fellow man, and love them as he would. In Mathew 22, one of the Pharisees asks Jesus what the great commandment in the law is, to which he replies:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Let’s remember that second half for later.

The second example is that of my friends that I made at BYU. While there, I had the blessing of making many friends who were returning missionaries. They would often talk about their experiences on their mission while I was around, and how it was a great experience. Now, I’ve been told my whole life what a great experience missions are, but there was something about having good friends around my age that helped me start to see how positive missions really can on an individual level.

I had friends that served all across the world and some at their own homes as service missionaries, similar to how I will be serving. They were some of the best people I’ve known, sacrificing their time and energy to help those around them. One of my good friends even left his apartment, after just getting home from a long shift, to walk 30 minutes to my apartment to bring me tissues when I was sick, just to have to walk another 30 m minutes home.

These first two examples lead me on to the third example. Myself. I wanted to be a good example like they were, to my younger siblings and my friends that haven’t yet served. I also wanted to get better at the second great commandment. I wanted to get better at loving my neighbor.

These reasons, as well as personal revelations that I needed to serve a mission in order to go where I wanted to go in life, were the biggest factors in me deciding to go on a mission.

I wanted to go help people, I wanted to be a better person myself, and I wanted to be a better person in my current friendships and relationships.

Early on in my plan to serve a mission, my heart wasn’t really in the right place. I had wanted to serve as a service missionary because I thought it would be an easy way to get my mission over with. Because of the people that I was blessed to meet over the past two years, I began to see the true value of a mission, and began to realise that I should serve a teaching mission instead. I eventually got to a point in my journey where I was ready and willing, and even excited to serve a teaching mission, and be of service to people in other parts of the world. I was however still called on a service mission, and I realized that maybe I just needed to have my heart in the right place, and that I really did need to start as a service missionary all along.

This hasn’t been the easiest decision, by far. My records were bounced all around the world, delaying the submitting of my papers, which was a little bit discouraging. I’ll have to put my relationships on a temporary pause, which is admittedly very hard. These hard things aren’t going to dissuade me from serving a mission, and they are not meant to dissuade anyone thinking of serving a mission. Instead they highlight sacrifice. In an April 2012 talk, titled Sacrifice, President Dallin H. Oaks says “Quote Our lives of service and sacrifice are the most appropriate expressions of our commitment to serve the Master and our fellowmen. Close Quote” I highlight sacrifice as an example of the importance of commitment to our Savior Jesus Christ, and to our fellow men. I hope that through this sacrifice, I can brighten the lives of the people around me, as Jesus did through the ultimate sacrifice. Through all of these hard things, I have come to know with certainty that serving a mission is the right thing for me.

I have always been drawn to service, whether I be a teaching or a service missionary. I have always liked the idea of helping people in need, and by doing so paving the way for the gospel to eventually find its way into their lives. Over the past week or so, I have been looking into various service opportunities in the area, and in doing so I got a brief glimpse into just how many people need people that are willing to help. I hope that as a service missionary I can brighten their lives, and learn how to be more willing to help others, even continuing far beyond my mission. I want to become better at learning how to understand people and their needs a lot better than I do now. I hope that I can also continue that far beyond my mission, and be able to be like those first few examples I mentioned earlier.

To summarize, I decided to go on a mission for growth and for an example. I hope that I can grow to be a better son of God and a better neighbor to my fellow men. I hope that I can help myself and others grow in faith and love of God through my service.

I bear my testimony that being of service to everyone is following in the example of our elder brother, Jesus Christ, and that through service we can bring light to our lives and the lives of those around us. I know that he lives, and he paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may return to live with him and our Heavenly Father, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Story Lady

I was asked to help with a ward activity on Saturday. Our old ward did a family history activity and I got to be the story lady. I read three books I particularly love that connect with family history: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (each person's story matters, we should keep journals), Some Dogs Do (there are talents and traits that are passed down through families), and Owl Moon (family traditions are meaningful). I had a pretty steady stream of audience members coming to my storytelling station, including one little boy who only wanted to hear stories and was quite put out when his mom tried to move to another station.

I love that I got to be part of this activity by doing something that brings me joy.

Called to Serve

Peter got a very special, much anticipated email. With his permission, I'll share most of it here.

Acts of Service

Sophie is playing the lead in her school musical (in two of the four shows, all the speaking roles are double cast) and they open tomorrow night. She wanted to review her lines this evening after rehearsal, but I was making dinner, Phoebe was doing homework, and Bryan was picking up Cooper from a track meet. Topher offered to read opposite her. She reported that he did "a really good job."

This picture makes my heart happy. Yes, it's so cool that she's got this role. And it's great that Topher can read well enough to do this. But the real joy comes from watching Topher serve his sister.

Do Unto Others

We attended both our old ward and our new ward on Sunday. We went to our old ward at 9:00 to support our young friends and watch their Primary program. It was both wonderful to witness and so sad to see all these kids that I don't get to work with anymore. We got lots of hugs and some shared tears.

Then we went directly to our own meeting which starts at 11:00. That included our second and final practice for the Primary program. Right after that was a baptism for a young man who had a remarkable conversion story. By the time we got home we had just enough time to change, make a quick dinner, wolf some of that food down, and get back in the car.

Cooper, Phoebe, and I spent the hours from 5:00 until 8:30 preparing, serving, and cleaning up dinner at a local emergency shelter. It functions out of the basement of a church during the six cold months of the year to provide food, shelter, and showers to those without. I was simultaneously incredibly thankful that it exists and incredibly sad that it needs to exist. The people we served were so thankful. Phoebe took the job of handing trays of food out the window between the kitchen and the dining room. I joined her near the end. One woman came up to the window and asked if we were from a school. I told her we were from a church. She asked which church. I answered, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." She grinned, said thank you, and left.

I didn't anticipate how exhausting standing for three and a half hours would be. After that very long day, I fell asleep at 10:30, which is a totally normal time to go to sleep, but not at all normal for me. I slept for nine and a half hours that night.

I guess the moral of this story is that spending a full day serving others leads to a really great night of sleep.

Rockin' Out For a Good Cause

Sophie is part of a group at the library that helps plan activities and does service. Yesterday they gathered together and painted rocks for veterans. These were her contributions.

Walkabout

Cooper and Peter have been taking care of our neighbor's pets for a week now. Before they left, our friends mentioned that Topher might enjoy helping walk the dog at least one day. It's been rainy and cold and I've been too tired to accompany them (I wasn't comfortable with the big boys walking both the dog and the Topher). But today it was only a little rainy and it was much warmer, so Topher and I helped walk the dog.

He was pleased.

The Work of Christmas

The Work of Christmas

by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among the people,

To make music in the heart.

In Silhouette

About a month ago I got a call from a friend at church asking if I would help with something for the Ward Christmas party. She had seen a nativity done in silhouette set to a Christmas version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah. She wondered if I could put together something like that for our ward. I said I was happy to help and she sent me this video of what she wanted.

She liked the original, except for the ending. She didn't want the nativity to end with the crucifixion. I agreed and started brainstorming an alternate ending. When I met with the Activities Committee to explain our concept I suggested that we could just rewrite the words to that verse. This suggestion was met with some shock from the members of the Committee. I guess changing lyrics wasn't something they had done before. I said it wouldn't be a big deal and they agreed that could work. 

The engineers in the group took on the task of building the screen, one of the women with a theatre background volunteered to do the props and costumes, and the head of the committee said she'd send out messages to everyone to set our rehearsals. That left me the task of rewriting the last verse and planning the blocking. Those were my favorites jobs, so I was happy.

I listened to the original Christmas version several times and decided that I was bothered by more than just the last verse. Not all of the phrases fit the music and I wanted to expand some of the concepts. So instead of changing the last verse I wrote three new verses for the beginning and heavily changed the other three verses. We dropped the last verse altogether and used a quote from President Russell M. Nelson instead. Bryan was a major help with the rewrite. He gets credit for most of the Joseph verse and the line about "a bursting inn" in the fourth verse.

Once it was written, we had to stage it. We had exactly two rehearsals, one the week before and one the day of the performance, and only about thirty minutes with the whole cast. The night before that second rehearsal I typed up the staging notes from the week before (I was thankful for the woman that wrote down all the direction I was handing out!) and decided to add the present day silhouettes during the final quote. I really wanted to bring the Savior's story and example to our day and that seemed like a good solution. The actors during that section are actually the singers! They were the only performers who were in modern clothes and I couldn't take the time for costume changes for the other actors. They were good sports to jump in and do it in the eleventh hour.

Speaking of the musicians, while I directed the actors, they put together the song. At the beginning of our first rehearsal I handed them the words I'd finished writing the night before, told them my general idea for how it might go, told them I trusted them, and left them to it. I knew the pianist had brought a piano solo version of the song that she already had. It was only after the rehearsal was over that I discovered the song she had was in the wrong key for our two Primary kid singers. The pianist found the key that worked best for them, wrote out the chords, then put my words to notes and sent us all sheet music a few days later. She's pretty fantastic.

Our church building doesn't have a stage, just a big gym that can be divided into three equal sections. We created a stage by closing the accordion doors of the third section partway and attaching the massive bedsheet on its PVC pipe frame to the doors. When we were staging the nativity I noticed two problems. The actors didn't want to get too close to the curtain (which in turn made their shadows bigger than we wanted) and they weren't always aware when they were visible and when they were still hidden behind the doors. The woman that did the costumes and props suggested that we tape numbers on the floor, actual marks, for the actors to stand on. That would get them close enough to the curtain so the shadows were the correct size and it would ensure that they were on stage all the way. I told her I thought it was brilliant and we used the idea.

If you watch the original version and our updated rendition you'll see that I did pull some ideas that they used. I had a theatre professor in college that liked to say, "You're only as good as the people you steal from." When you're directing, that's true. But I did put my own spin on it. I think my favorite change was during the Wise Men verse. I knew that I didn't want to use a baby doll to represent Jesus because he was a young child when the Wise Men found him, not a baby. But I hadn't figured out a fix by the time I needed to stage it. The sweet couple that played Mary and Joseph had brought their three little boys to our first practice. When it came time to block that verse I looked over at the boys while they entertained themselves and inspiration struck. I asked the parents if one of the boys wanted to be in the nativity. They said yes, the oldest (who is a very young and small five year old) had expressed interest. So on the spot he was cast as Jesus as a young child. He took direction better than some of the big kids and was calm backstage, which was amazing.

During that second practice I noticed that each actor had two shadows, a strong one and a second lighter one. I went backstage to figure out where the second light source was. One of the engineers that had built the screen frame figured it out. The main bright light was reflecting off the shiny gym floor which created another shadow! Thankfully that's the room we use for Primary and they have long gray rugs that they roll out to quiet the kids' noisy feet. A few people quickly put the rugs out and the double shadow problem vanished!

Because we'd only had two practices I knew that the actors might struggle to remember their blocking. I decided to print two copies of the script as 18" x 24" blueprints. Before our second rehearsal I stapled a script to each side of the backstage area. The actress that played Mary asked if she could highlight her part. I thought it was a good idea and could help the others as well. Between the practice and the performance I found every color of highlighter we had at home. When we arrived for the party that night I spent time backstage highlighting everyone's stage direction, each character in their own color. As we were getting ready to start the performance I saw several of the participants reviewing the wall scripts, so I think they helped.

The Christmas party started with the kids visiting with Santa in a different room (I appreciated the effort to separate Santa from the retelling of the birth of the Savior), then dinner, then the nativity. Near the end of the dinner we gathered our performers for costumes and final blocking reviews. I had to continually remind the kids to only touch their own props and to definitely not move anyone else's prop. What I didn't realize was that I also should have told them not to spin their own props through the air. Moments before we were supposed to start one of our stars (we had one for each side of the stage) was spun so much that it went flying and broke when it met the floor. Our amazing prop woman grabbed the painters tape she'd used to put numbers on the floor and put the star back together.

And with that excitement, we began. I'm pleased with how it turned out. Oh, and I'm not the only member of my family who was at those rehearsals. Peter played the stage right wall (his hair has gotten so long that he had to pull it into a bun so it didn't fall in his face and show up in the silhouette) and Phoebe and Sophie played the angels. They all were wonderful! And don't worry, none of them broke the star.

Bryan was tasked with recording our final product. He said the best, and only unobstructed, view was from under the table we had sat at to eat our dinner. Big thanks to Bryan for lying on his belly under a table to take this video. For some reason it won't go to full screen here, but if you open it in YouTube it should give you the option to fill the screen.