Examine the Day

We know that Sunday is a special day....the Sabbath, a day of worship, a day when we draw near to our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.  We attend our meetings to receive inspiration, to learn the gospel, and to contemplate our lives and the eternities.

But, what about the other six days of the week?  Do we stop receiving inspiration?  Do we stop learning?   Do we stop striving to be like Jesus or stop following His teachings?

Prior to leaving on our mission, Elder Johnson and I thought that our senior mission would be a time of spiritual growth.

Then......

We began our primary assignment as housing coordinators for approximately 200 missionaries in the New York New York South Mission, which entails finding new apartments, inspecting missionary apartments for cleanliness and safety, closing apartments that are no longer needed, ordering and distributing cleaning and housing supplies, teaching missionaries how to clean and maintain their apartments, and dealing with all the kinds of problems that come from renting over 100 different apartments in varying conditions, including bugs of all kinds, plumbing problems, worn out and broken furnishings, vacuums, lost keys and window air conditioning units.

Before the next missionary transfer day on August 7, we were told three vacant apartments were to be "blinded in".  That means a vacant apartment would be assigned to a missionary companionship on transfer day.  As part of our assignment we make sure the apartments are ready for the missionaries to move into.

As we began our inspections, we found that each apartment needed repairs, supplies and a thorough cleaning.  None of the apartments had air conditioners that worked.  It was close to ninety degrees inside, and it was hot and humid! After a full days work in each apartment we were dripping wet and exhausted.

Was this what a senior mission looked like....where was the spirituality?

And then we thought of the Savior.  During His entire mortal ministry, He was humble and provided love through His service to others.  THIS IS WHAT WE WERE TO LEARN!  Our service to the missionaries, showing our love for them by serving them.

Lesson Learned:
Each day we are given choices, a work to do.  Do we just go about the "job" and not pay attention to what we need to learn?  Do we recognize the blessings that are there for us?  At the end of the day, can you say to yourself, "I did what was asked of me, I did my best"?