Our Season of Service

Inspired by some friends of our family, the Marshall family has decided to try a new way of exchanging Christmas gifts in 2012. We hope it will become a wonderful family tradition.
For years, the four Marshall children, their spouses, and their parents exchanged gifts every Christmas, but in 2011, we decided the gift-giving tradition may need a change since we are all so blessed and in need of truly nothing. We decided we needed to find a better way to celebrate the true Christmas spirit.

We suggested that we each perform acts of service in the name of the sibling whose name we were assigned at random. Our service will be kept a secret until Christmas Day.

Our friend drew the names for us and notified each of us privately of the person who should inspire our service. On Christmas Day, we reveal who we were given and how we chose to serve by posting our stories on The Marshall Family Season of Service blog.

We hope this tradition will help us focus on serving our communities and each other during the annual celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

We invite you to come back to our blog on Christmas morning to read this year's service.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Dear Wendy...

Dear Wendy,

When I drew your name this year, I wanted to do something that is something you enjoyed.  Horses were too much of a stretch, I already had a garden, and so I settled on something else.  At the beginning of the year, you were struggling to find the perfect bread recipe.   One day while we were talking about bread and it's methodology, it hit me as to what I would do to serve others in your name.  I would make bread.  And bread I made.  I set out with a goal to give away one loaf of bread to someone in need every week of the year.  I thought that I might be setting my sights too high and thought that if I fell short, it would be okay because at least I would have served a handful of people.

I've been able to look around me and see people in need that I might have never noticed before; a lonely widow, someone recovering from surgery, a mother at her wit's end, a lady down with the flu,  and homesick missionaries.  I've been able to reach out to others; teachers who work so hard for children, an expression of gratitude, just stopping by to say hello, wanted you to know I was thinking of you, howdy neighbor, and thanks for being my friend.

Here we are at year's end.  I think you've figured out your bread recipe. ;)  I think I've figured out mine too.  Just reaching out to let someone know you care is one way we can serve others and our Heavenly Father.  Mosiah 2:17 says, "And this I tell you that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."  More than 50 loaves of bread later, I know that Heavenly Father is aware of each and every one of us.  He loves us.  He places us in each other's paths to help and serve one another.






No comments:

Post a Comment