In our monthly mission report there's a place for "Service Hours." When your mission job description includes doing anything and everything to improve the lives of the farm workers, their families and the community, it's a bit hard to see what service hours would be outside those parameters.
If the company hires a custodian, is it service hours when we (Jay mostly) sweep out the plague of beetles on the floor of the Learning Center every morning? Or do service hours begin when he also cleans the bathroom and the adjacent storeroom?
Sometimes I try to quantify things way outside our normal expectations like painting someone's new house for 8 hours, but usually I try to ignore that little blank. On a mission, isn't it all service?
Some things we've done this last month included making our General Conference cinnamon rolls to deliver to most of the families we teach, arranging a tour of the farm and lunch for a busload of 27 temple missionaries--including the entire Temple Presidency, becoming the ward choir director (yes, lower case. When I told them they were the best choir I'd ever directed they knew that I was as inexperienced as I looked), demonstrating how to make a banana pineapple cake and another time demonstrating how to make rolls, mending the young missionaries' pants, getting their bikes back in working condition and giving them and their investigators rides to various activities, teaching knitting, working together on various sewing projects, digging weeds, running medicine to someone who needed it, giving Priesthood blessings, planning a birthday party, knitting a going-away wool sheep for a young supervisor, rounding up workers to learn that the father/grandfather had passed away~~Hey! I've been feeling bad that we formally teach so few hours in the day; but when I see it written down, we are doing something. I guess it is service.
But gosh. It sure doesn't feel like service. It just feels good.
