Normally my summers consist of the absolute epitome of idleness. Growing up
the intensely humid south meant sitting on my front porch (or even my
neighbor's front porch) basking in the wet heat until my eyelids were drooping
while maybe playing with my neighbor's dog. Laziness seemed more like a
standard than a sin.
Thankfully, however, one terribly unproductive summer after my freshman year of college had me rethinking this pattern of nothingness. My parents have always tried to instill in us a strong work ethic. I think some of us kids got a better feel for it than others. For myself, I usually only start thinking about it whenever I find myself glued to a couch cushion with the tv playing continual nonsense in the background, capturing only my passive interest by default.
Certainly I enjoy hiking, sports, and other outdoor activities as much as most the population in Utah, but when I realize that I have nothing scheduled for the next day, it's a lot easier to just...well, stay in bed. Sleeping. Eating. Watching tv. Oh, and strumming on my guitar like a pretended expert, of course.
So I decided I needed a summer job (Fall semester is already taken care of). Hands down. That's easier said than done, especially when I usually go home over the summer and get easily and lovingly pampered by my mom and dad.
So first step. Stay in Provo. Second step. Buy a year contract that forces me to come up with over $200 every month. Third step. Come to realization that getting a job, while helping to cure me of unproductive habits, is also miles better than living on the street. Which is the alternative to paying rent. Therefore, the job hunt began.
Again, circumstances seemed to favor my idleness. I was blessed with a job offer from a political science professor. This job consists of me reading Conference talks and looking for politically relevant trends to help with a book/project he is working on. After three hours of reading every day, hours that I can schedule on my own time, I find myself in the same abyss of dangerously idle free time. So what to do about it? That's when I had the bright idea to pray for opportunities to serve more in the church and community.
I decided to at least try and do one act of service a day. The problem was, I quickly began to classify everything that I really just didn't want to do as service. Furthermore, our near perpetually messy kitchen gave me a multiplicity of chances to "serve" my roommates. In effect, by the end of a week, my efforts seemed a little weak. But my Bishop and fellow ward members have slowly started to help me out in that regard. Maybe a little more than I wanted.
A couple of Sundays ago, I was called into the Bishop's office to receive a calling. I expected him to have released me from my previous calling as Compassionate Service Chair. I was wrong. Instead, he wanted to give me another one. FHE group leader. And of course there is always visiting teaching. Then, while at my sister's house for dinner, she suggested that all of us sisters out here in Provo volunteer at the MTC every Monday. This all seemed good and productive. What I wasn't expecting was for everything I had planned to end up on one day.
Sunday evening. A call comes from my RS President. "Hey Sandra, a girl in our ward is flying home to Chile tomorrow. My car is having problems, so I wondered if you could take her up to the airport in Salt Lake tomorrow." "Sure, I'd love to." It's not like you can say no to the President. Especially when you do have a car, you set your own hours, you're not taking classes, you've been praying to serve, and you are still the Compassionate Service Chair. Okay. I was going to Salt Lake City.
Monday Morning. Get up early so you can read scriptures and get in 3 hours of work. 11am meet with your professor to discuss the work for the week. 12pm Take ward member up to SLC. 3:30pm volunteer at the MTC. 5pm get materials for FHE and make sure everyone is invited. 7:30pm FHE.
Not bad. A full day, and quite productive!
But, things didn't go so well. I stayed up later than I should have Sunday night because all our roommates were actually home and talking....this is rare. Got up a little late Monday because I was so tired. Squeezed in 2 hours of work and scriptures before meeting. Accidentally cut off a police officer at the light because I was thinking the green arrow means go...when I'm not in the turning lane. Worked after meeting my professor right until I had to load up 3 VERY large suitcases and some bags into my little kia rio and drive to SLC. Hit traffic. Got to the airport and got lost trying to find parking. Accidentally paid for parking twice. Realized that the parking garage I picked was far away from the desired terminal...decided to take 2 of the 3 suitcases myself to make up for my idiotic, directionally-challenged behavior. Finally found the right terminal and dropped off my ward member. Drove back to SLC and realized that I didn't have time to eat anything before meeting sisters at the MTC. Realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. Pretended not to realize that. Got to the MTC and was told that the english session wouldn't start for another half hour. Finally finished at 5pm, half asleep and very hungry. Finally bought some food, but then realized I had no gas...while I was trying to drive home. Regretted the fact that I refused to let my ward member pay me gas money. Especially when my bank then told me that I have about $2 in my account after I bought gas and some treats for FHE. My next paycheck isn't for 2 weeks. Got home just in time for FHE activity, where I tried to lead out while still half-asleep. And finally...at about 9pm, went to my bed and fell in it. Because all of the above was not what I was expecting.
I know that I have no real right to complain. I have it pretty easy. And as I was driving home and later reflecting on the whole day, I started to think about service and its "rewards." It then occurred to me, to my infinite surprise, that for every act of service I had tried to accomplish, I had received one in return. Let's re-vamp that day from another perspective...
Monday Morning: Despite getting up late and being tired enough to practically cut off a police officer while running a red light, I didn't get a ticket. Why? He seemed to intuitively understand that I was having an off morning, or he was just super nice, because he just waved it off and motioned for me to keep driving. Maybe he was busy or stressed. But I was super happy. I consider that an act of service from him. Then came the wild airport scene. We had driven into a parking lot and my friendly passenger begged me to let her pay for parking since I refused to let her pay for gas. When we ended up accidentally leaving the parking lot, I felt sheepish that I had made her pay for nothing. However, as I was leaving the parking garage, putting my card into the machine like a ticket, I realized that the parking toll only lets you leave if you use the same card that you used to get in. If I hadn't accidentally left the first parking place where we had used her card, then she would be in Chile and I would have been stuck in a parking lot for eternity. That was God's little service to me. While dropping her off, I was exasperated that I had accidentally parked very far from her terminal. I was struggling to pull along her two suitcases while talking to my mom on the phone for directions. An older man who worked at the airport approached, asked us where we going, then took one bag and led us there himself. That was service from my mom and the random airport guy. I wish I had caught his name. In the MTC, though I was tired, the missionaries served me with the bearing of uplifting testimonies and gospel principles. I learned a lot. Afterwards, when mentioning casually how I hadn't had any food, my sister offered to buy me pizza. It was delicious. For fhe, my co-leader took charge of most of the preparations and let me sort of slump my duties. Everyone who went was upbeat and willingly participated. Everything went great.
So in the end, I was served, perhaps even more than I was trying to serve. What goes around, comes around, and sometimes it seems the blessings we get from serving show up by surprise, like a nice pat on the back after a hard day's labor. But if we're too preoccupied with our own problems, we just might miss the almost hidden rewards. I'm glad that this time I wasn't too tired to notice. Because I learned that God really was looking out for me. I got to be productive, serve, and be served. Summer couldn't get any better than that.
Thankfully, however, one terribly unproductive summer after my freshman year of college had me rethinking this pattern of nothingness. My parents have always tried to instill in us a strong work ethic. I think some of us kids got a better feel for it than others. For myself, I usually only start thinking about it whenever I find myself glued to a couch cushion with the tv playing continual nonsense in the background, capturing only my passive interest by default.
Certainly I enjoy hiking, sports, and other outdoor activities as much as most the population in Utah, but when I realize that I have nothing scheduled for the next day, it's a lot easier to just...well, stay in bed. Sleeping. Eating. Watching tv. Oh, and strumming on my guitar like a pretended expert, of course.
So I decided I needed a summer job (Fall semester is already taken care of). Hands down. That's easier said than done, especially when I usually go home over the summer and get easily and lovingly pampered by my mom and dad.
So first step. Stay in Provo. Second step. Buy a year contract that forces me to come up with over $200 every month. Third step. Come to realization that getting a job, while helping to cure me of unproductive habits, is also miles better than living on the street. Which is the alternative to paying rent. Therefore, the job hunt began.
Again, circumstances seemed to favor my idleness. I was blessed with a job offer from a political science professor. This job consists of me reading Conference talks and looking for politically relevant trends to help with a book/project he is working on. After three hours of reading every day, hours that I can schedule on my own time, I find myself in the same abyss of dangerously idle free time. So what to do about it? That's when I had the bright idea to pray for opportunities to serve more in the church and community.
I decided to at least try and do one act of service a day. The problem was, I quickly began to classify everything that I really just didn't want to do as service. Furthermore, our near perpetually messy kitchen gave me a multiplicity of chances to "serve" my roommates. In effect, by the end of a week, my efforts seemed a little weak. But my Bishop and fellow ward members have slowly started to help me out in that regard. Maybe a little more than I wanted.
A couple of Sundays ago, I was called into the Bishop's office to receive a calling. I expected him to have released me from my previous calling as Compassionate Service Chair. I was wrong. Instead, he wanted to give me another one. FHE group leader. And of course there is always visiting teaching. Then, while at my sister's house for dinner, she suggested that all of us sisters out here in Provo volunteer at the MTC every Monday. This all seemed good and productive. What I wasn't expecting was for everything I had planned to end up on one day.
Sunday evening. A call comes from my RS President. "Hey Sandra, a girl in our ward is flying home to Chile tomorrow. My car is having problems, so I wondered if you could take her up to the airport in Salt Lake tomorrow." "Sure, I'd love to." It's not like you can say no to the President. Especially when you do have a car, you set your own hours, you're not taking classes, you've been praying to serve, and you are still the Compassionate Service Chair. Okay. I was going to Salt Lake City.
Monday Morning. Get up early so you can read scriptures and get in 3 hours of work. 11am meet with your professor to discuss the work for the week. 12pm Take ward member up to SLC. 3:30pm volunteer at the MTC. 5pm get materials for FHE and make sure everyone is invited. 7:30pm FHE.
Not bad. A full day, and quite productive!
But, things didn't go so well. I stayed up later than I should have Sunday night because all our roommates were actually home and talking....this is rare. Got up a little late Monday because I was so tired. Squeezed in 2 hours of work and scriptures before meeting. Accidentally cut off a police officer at the light because I was thinking the green arrow means go...when I'm not in the turning lane. Worked after meeting my professor right until I had to load up 3 VERY large suitcases and some bags into my little kia rio and drive to SLC. Hit traffic. Got to the airport and got lost trying to find parking. Accidentally paid for parking twice. Realized that the parking garage I picked was far away from the desired terminal...decided to take 2 of the 3 suitcases myself to make up for my idiotic, directionally-challenged behavior. Finally found the right terminal and dropped off my ward member. Drove back to SLC and realized that I didn't have time to eat anything before meeting sisters at the MTC. Realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. Pretended not to realize that. Got to the MTC and was told that the english session wouldn't start for another half hour. Finally finished at 5pm, half asleep and very hungry. Finally bought some food, but then realized I had no gas...while I was trying to drive home. Regretted the fact that I refused to let my ward member pay me gas money. Especially when my bank then told me that I have about $2 in my account after I bought gas and some treats for FHE. My next paycheck isn't for 2 weeks. Got home just in time for FHE activity, where I tried to lead out while still half-asleep. And finally...at about 9pm, went to my bed and fell in it. Because all of the above was not what I was expecting.
I know that I have no real right to complain. I have it pretty easy. And as I was driving home and later reflecting on the whole day, I started to think about service and its "rewards." It then occurred to me, to my infinite surprise, that for every act of service I had tried to accomplish, I had received one in return. Let's re-vamp that day from another perspective...
Monday Morning: Despite getting up late and being tired enough to practically cut off a police officer while running a red light, I didn't get a ticket. Why? He seemed to intuitively understand that I was having an off morning, or he was just super nice, because he just waved it off and motioned for me to keep driving. Maybe he was busy or stressed. But I was super happy. I consider that an act of service from him. Then came the wild airport scene. We had driven into a parking lot and my friendly passenger begged me to let her pay for parking since I refused to let her pay for gas. When we ended up accidentally leaving the parking lot, I felt sheepish that I had made her pay for nothing. However, as I was leaving the parking garage, putting my card into the machine like a ticket, I realized that the parking toll only lets you leave if you use the same card that you used to get in. If I hadn't accidentally left the first parking place where we had used her card, then she would be in Chile and I would have been stuck in a parking lot for eternity. That was God's little service to me. While dropping her off, I was exasperated that I had accidentally parked very far from her terminal. I was struggling to pull along her two suitcases while talking to my mom on the phone for directions. An older man who worked at the airport approached, asked us where we going, then took one bag and led us there himself. That was service from my mom and the random airport guy. I wish I had caught his name. In the MTC, though I was tired, the missionaries served me with the bearing of uplifting testimonies and gospel principles. I learned a lot. Afterwards, when mentioning casually how I hadn't had any food, my sister offered to buy me pizza. It was delicious. For fhe, my co-leader took charge of most of the preparations and let me sort of slump my duties. Everyone who went was upbeat and willingly participated. Everything went great.
So in the end, I was served, perhaps even more than I was trying to serve. What goes around, comes around, and sometimes it seems the blessings we get from serving show up by surprise, like a nice pat on the back after a hard day's labor. But if we're too preoccupied with our own problems, we just might miss the almost hidden rewards. I'm glad that this time I wasn't too tired to notice. Because I learned that God really was looking out for me. I got to be productive, serve, and be served. Summer couldn't get any better than that.
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