Graditude

It is so important to be willing to give service to others. Looking for those opportunities is the best way to find them. I know when I am looking for them, it's a lot easier to find needs that I might not have noticed if I wasn't looking.

This past weekend we had a crazy storm with huge raindrops. It was measured to be coming down about 1 1/2 inches per hour! It was insanity! Hail also accompanied it. Water was running down my street and filling our garden. My husband was worried about our plants until we started to receive phone calls from members of my church in our neighborhood. People's basements were flooding!

Jimmy didn't hesitate and went to help suck water out of basements with his shop vac. Today I heard back from someone that he helped people in one home to rip up their carpet because it was ruined from the flooding! I wasn't only impressed by my husband but by many people in the neighborhood who stepped up.

We had more then a few phone calls from people in the ward just checking up on us to make sure we didn't have any flooding. I also had a couple people call me and ask me to call other people in the ward to check on them. I checked on the families I go visiting teaching to. My visiting teaching partner was gone for the day but when she got home she found her neighbors had sucked water out of her window wells and saved her basement from really flooding. She went over to check the window wells of another sister we know who was gone for a couple of the summer months.

I am so grateful to have some wonderful people surrounding me in my neighborhood. We really pull together to help each other - not only in the sudden death and funeral services we had recently - but also with any disasters large or small. I know I could count on my ward for anything and that's a beautiful feeling. Knowing this makes me even more willing and ready to serve them as well with anything. I'm all ears for some way to serve.