Sixty Ideas for Service

1. Write letters to all the missionaries, including older couples, serving from your ward.

2. Offer to go contacting with the full-time missionaries serving in your area.

3. Invite the full-time missionaries to dinner. Help your mother prepare it.

4. Send a thank-you note to your adult leaders after special activities.

5. As a class, offer to clean up after the next Young Men/Young Women activity.

6. As a class, under the direction of the nursery coordinator, offer to assist in the nursery during Relief Society homemaking or ward temple night.

7. Offer to help clean up the grounds around your ward building.

8. When 12-year-olds come to Mutual for the first time, sit by them or stay with them for their first activity so they’ll feel welcome.

9. Offer rides to meetings and activities to youth who can’t drive.

10. Have the older youth in your ward select secret brothers and sisters among the younger youth. Send notes and treats with encouraging thoughts.

11. Go out of your way to be nice to the other Latter-day Saint youth in school, especially the younger ones who may need a little more attention.

12. Write a letter to your grandparents or great-aunts and uncles.

13. Pick out the clothes you have grown out of and pass them on to your younger brothers or sisters, or donate them to someone who could use them.

14. Offer to be in charge of family home evening.

15. Write someone in your family a secret “thank you” or “I love you” note.

16. Clean your parents’ shoes to get ready for Sunday.

17. Offer to baby-sit while your parents go to the temple or to a ward activity.

18. Record oral histories of older members of the ward.

19. When someone has an idea for a big service project, support them and work to make it a success.

20. Organize an earthquake or flood preparedness seminar for your neighborhood.

21. Read to children in the hospital, but write a story yourself featuring the person or people you’re going to read to.

22. Offer free baby-sitting to families unable to pay for it or who have to stay home caring for a sick member of the family.

23. Offer to tutor children in the ward who are having a difficult time with their lessons in school.

24. Offer to teach some skill you have to others.

25. Organize an outing to the park or an activity for neighborhood children so mothers can have a couple of hours off.

26. Organize a “lifesaver committee” to which ward mothers can turn for baby-sitting, housework, etc. in time of real emergency.

27. Take care of the children so both husband and wife can sing in the ward choir or go to choir practice.

28. Do a joint community clean-up project with a youth group from a congregation of some other religion.

29. Volunteer to help welcome newcomers to the ward by accompanying them to classes.

30. Share old copies of the Tambuli with families that don’t subscribe.

31. Ask missionaries from the ward if they would like you to write to any of their investigators and share with them your feelings about the gospel.

32. Volunteer to distribute excess garden products to needy people in the ward.

33. Offer to help set up chairs when any organization in the ward needs help.

34. Learn to do your family history and genealogy.

35. Write a note of support to a friend you know is having a difficult time.

36. Compose a special song for someone who needs it. It doesn’t have to be great. It’s the thought that counts.

37. If someone writes poetry, set his or her poem to music as a special surprise.

38. Defend someone you hear being made fun of.

39. Apologize when you know you have offended someone no matter who is right or wrong.

40. When someone apologizes to you, accept the apology graciously and forgive them.

41. If you can see that someone doesn’t have a very high opinion of himself, send him a little anonymous note listing some qualities you admire in him.

42. 42. Keep your room clean. This is a great service to family.

43. Develop a good relationship with your brothers and sisters. This is another great service to your family.

44. Get along with your parents. This a great service to both them and yourself.

45. Trust your parents enough to tell them about problems you are having. This is a service to both of you.

46. Like yourself. This is a great service to both yourself and everyone around you.

47. If a friend tells you he is contemplating suicide but swears you to secrecy, tell his parents! This is one of the few times when you must not keep a secret.

48. Tell your parents you love them and how much you appreciate them and how hard you’re trying to live as they have taught you. This will make them happier than anything else you could do for them.

49. Don’t forget that most service you could render to others could also be done for your own family, and they need service too.

50. If a teacher in school or church has made a real difference in your life, tell him or her now. Chances are he thinks he’s not getting through to you.

51. Offer your art skills to make posters or banners for the ward activity committee to help publicize upcoming events.

52. Pay fast offerings. You’ll be helping people who really need it.

53. Prepare family home evening visual aids for the ward library.

54. Find out if your city has a volunteer service program and what areas need volunteers.

55. When you give a nonmember friend a Book of Mormon, include a coupon for performing some service such as housework, yard work, or baby-sitting.

56. When a mother has a new baby, offer to baby-sit the other children so the husband can visit his wife in the hospital.

57. Offer to entertain the other children so a mother can have time with her new baby. Or tend the baby so she can have time with the other children.

58. Make a nice thank-you card for your home teachers.

59. Let those who are handicapped or unable to write letters for themselves dictate them to you.

60. Have fun in giving service.

Photography by Gig Greenwood

Photography by Deanette Goates Smith