Bringing My Scriptures to Church

One change that having a baby brought to my life that I did not expect was how much—or how little—I would be able to listen gospel lessons during Sunday meetings. For the first several months of my baby’s life, it felt like I spent most of my time at church in the mother’s room. Where I could hear sacrament meeting but missed the other lessons. Then carrying around all of the baby’s gear made me start being lazy about bringing my scriptures to church. When I realized that not bringing my scriptures to church was affecting my experience with gospel learning, I did some reorganization and made it work, but even though I made the effort to bring my own study materials, in reality most Sundays I never opened my scriptures during church.

This is why during Sunday school on my baby’s first day in nursery I had to remind myself to open my scriptures again. Although I had made myself keep the habit of carrying my scriptures with me, I would have to start remembering that with the baby in nursery I finally had enough hands to open them once more.

Coming full circle with going to church as a mother, these changes have made me grateful for many things. I’m grateful that we have scriptures available to each of us, individually, so much that we are able to bring our own scriptures to church each Sunday, engage in lessons, and take an active part in gospel learning. Having this opportunity taken away a little while I had to chase a crawling baby helped me better appreciate the opportunities I have on Sundays to be a gospel learner. And now I’m so grateful for the nursery program and dedicated teachers and leaders who will teach my son the gospel so that I can take time during church meetings to keep learning too.

A Circle of Christmas Service

As the Christmas season began in 2008, I was struck by the instruction President Monson gave in that year’s Christmas devotional. He spoke of Christmas memories of the past and making new memories that year, but the stories he shared and the experiences he highlighted focused on service rather than giving or receiving gifts.

As I thought back on my Christmases past, only gifts that came during my childhood came to mind—like the Christmas my parents gave us our family dog, the Christmas when we received a new TV, and the Christmas when the giant present in a large garbage bag, neatly tied with a giant bow, turned out to be what I thought was an uneventful new set of family bath towels. Although these memories were pleasant and humorous, I couldn’t think of any meaningful Christmas memory that focused on service, as President Monson had talked about, instead of gifts.

President Monson’s talk about Christmas service was still on my mind when I went visiting teaching that month, so I decided to incorporate what the prophet had taught in the Christmas devotional as part of my visiting teaching message. I told the other sisters about my problem—that my Christmas memories were focused on gifts instead of service—and asked what we could do to strive to focus on service more than gifts in future Christmas seasons.

My visiting teaching sisters all had wonderful ideas and shared memories that matched what President Monson had taught. Their stories, however, were more familiar to me than I had anticipated. As they shared special Christmas service experiences, I realized that my problem was not that I had never done Christmas service but that the gift memories came to mind before the service memories. When my visiting teaching sisters shared their Christmas service experiences, I was finally reminded of my own.

One sister’s memory was especially significant to me. She told of a Christmas when her family was struggling financially because her father was unemployed at the time. She tenderly told of loving neighbors, friends, and community members who came to her family’s aid that year by providing food, decorations, and gifts for Christmas.

This sister’s story reminded me of a service project we did as a ward mutual group when I was a youth. We used part of the ward auxiliary budget funds and donations from ward members to provide Christmas for families in need. On a mutual night, each class or quorum was assigned a member of a family in need to purchase gifts for or a special Christmas item, like the tree, decorations, or Christmas dinner. After an hour or so of shopping, we all met back together to deliver Christmas to the needy families. I can still remember our Young Men’s leaders carrying a Christmas tree into a home. Even though I didn’t know the families we were serving, this service project was a very special experience.

It was not my visiting teaching sister’s family that our ward had served, as she lived in a different area at the time, but connecting my nearly forgotten service experience with the Christmas that she remembered best made that Christmas service project much more meaningful to me.

My visiting teacher’s story brought that service experience from a mutual activity years ago back in a full circle. Learning that my visiting teaching sister had been served in the same way that our ward had served someone else made that service experience much more personal to me, even years later. One small and simple, and nearly forgettable, act of service to me was a great and memorable thing to someone else.

This sister’s story was only the beginning. Once I got started, the memories of Christmas service from my childhood came flooding back. There was the family that came caroling to our house with a plate of cookies every Christmas Eve. I remember my mother baking loaves of nut bread and sending us off with our red wagon to deliver them to the neighbors. I thought of doorbell ditching the Twelve Days of Christmas to families in our ward that my parents thought could need a little extra love. All these memories were there in my past all the time, gifts of experience to propel me into making service a part of my Christmases now.


So how do we live and teach that giving Christmas service is more important than the gifts we receive? We keep remembering by doing, each year, over and over again, at this time when we celebrate His birth, what the Savior would do and “Love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Each experience of service that we embrace affects the people we serve and the people that we serve with altogether to make this special season a gift of service.


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The Local iPod Father

My husband and I love hiking. We love getting away from the city—from paved roads, fast food corners, and the demands of work—and escaping to forests, mountains, and wilderness. Several months ago, we went on a small hiking trip in a beautiful forest in Washington. The drive to the trailhead was a precarious incline on wet gravel, but as soon as we got out of the car and started on the trail we were enveloped with rich, dense rainforest. The reverence of the forest around us was profoundly silencing. I felt a natural urge to step carefully and quietly so that nothing would interrupt my feeling of awe. I could hear the rain—not a patter on a windshield or windowpane, but a light tinkling over pine needles or a tiny thud as water trickled through the high canopy overhead and landed on a branch or tree trunk. In response to the comforting balm inherent to nature, sometimes my husband and I talked quietly about ideas and things that came to mind. Not heavy, worrisome thoughts, but organic ones that seemed to grow up and out of our minds and hearts.

Our refreshing tromp through the forest was interrupted only by scattered passersby on the trail. We saw people of all kinds. Some were couples like us, old and young, who were quiet. A brief nod was enough recognition for them before we both moved on without interrupting each others’ thoughts too much. Others were louder, like a group of college students or a large family with several reluctant teenagers.

There were two parties on the trail that day who really stuck out to me because they contrasted so much. On our way up the trail, early on we passed a group that seemed to be two families—two young couples who each had an infant strapped to one parent or the other. Three of the adults were talking about their kids as they headed down the trail. One father, however, hung behind the rest about five feet. He was listening to an iPod. I contrasted that image with another father I saw on the trail. We passed him on the way up and he passed us on the way down. His son, probably about eighteen months, sat high in a child carrier above his father’s shoulders. It was just the two of them. The dad was a little slower than us going up, but a very fast hiker on the way down. We passed them a third time, however, just a quarter of a mile from the trailhead when we were nearly finished. The father had taken his son out of the carrier and was taking a picture of him crossing a little stream.

What a difference. In both cases the children were too small to hold a very reasonable conversation, but the father with the carrier was giving an experience to himself and his son. To himself he gave rigorous exercise and the enjoyment of the outdoors. To his son he gave an invitation to love those things as well. What an experience for that little boy! The iPod father, however, didn’t give anything to himself or his son but neglect and a missed opportunity.

I don’t want to knock iPods or people who use them, but I’m ashamed of anytime that I’ve acted like the local iPod father—-to family members or friends—-by shutting myself, them, and everything else besides an electronic media toy out of my life. There are times when I’ve shut out enriching opportunities just by my attitude, even without a handheld device. I hope that stops. I hope I can remember what I felt during the quiet, reverent moments on the trail that day and never exchange an experience like that for an hour with an iPod.