Service

This weekend I had the opportunity to go down to Baton Rouge, LA. and assist with the cleanup from Hurricane Gustav. I was interested to see how much destruction had actually occurred because there were no news reports of the damage. Most of the media concentrated on New Orleans.

I rode down with my 2 brother-in-laws who live locally, and 2 members of the Birmingham 2nd ward. Our Stake President sent out a call to all the members in our Stake to go down and help in Baton Rouge. Emails were passed from the Stake President to the Elders' Quorum presidencies and on to the general membership. We were warned to be self-sufficient and to gas up in Hattiesburg, MS before entering LA.

We soon discovered that the damage was quite extensive and we spent the weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) using chainsaws to cut away trees and haul away debris. The power was still out (at that point it was a week out from the storm) and people had thrown away their perishables. The people were all very appreciative of our help and it was great to help out someone in need. There will be some time where we'll all need help.

Church was held Sunday morning for an hour outside of the Stake center in Baton Rouge, right next to the temple. A Seventy, Elder Gay, and the mission president spoke. Elder Gay related a story of a trip to Africa where he suffered severe injuries in a car accident. The accident occurred in a remote area, but fortunately he and his missionary driver were taken to a town 30-miles away. The town had extremely limited medical care and supplies, but they had enough basics to treat Elder Gay. The doctor mentioned to him that all of the supplies that they did have had been provided by two senior couple missionaries from our church that had passed through the area some time before. The Church supplied the medical supplies for free, as part of our humanitarian efforts.

What's the lesson here? All of this boils down to our belief that faith and works go hand in hand. Because of our faith, because of our love of God and our fellow brothers and sisters, we feel we have a responsibility to help those in need. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus calls us to serve others and he shows us plainly by his example. Today, he still calls us to help others. If we truly love our Heavenly Father, won't we also love our brothers and sisters?