Doing What’s Needed

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and Chris Tollstrup was glad to be going to church with his family—Dad, Mom, Annie, Ryan, and Nicholas. They all just fit on one of the side benches in the chapel. During sacrament meeting, and especially when the bread and water were being passed by the deacons, Chris tried to think about the Savior, as his parents had taught him.

Afterward he went to his Primary class and was greeted by his teacher and friends. The teacher began the lesson by holding up several drawings and asking the class what they thought Jesus Christ would do if he saw each of the situations pictured.

One was a picture of a little girl who had fallen down and skinned her knee. There were also pictures of a boy finding a wallet with a lot of money in it, a beach covered with garbage, a girl eating all alone in the lunchroom at school, a child lost in a shopping mall, and a mother feeling overwhelmed by all the housework she had to do. It wasn’t too hard to decide that in each case Christ would be helpful, loving, honest, and kind.

In Chris’s neighborhood, the garbage is collected on Monday. The truck that comes to pick up and empty the garbage cans always seems to drop some trash along the side of the road as it goes from house to house. On the Monday after the lesson about following the Savior’s example, Chris’s Primary teacher was driving home after work. She noticed Chris halfway up the street, lugging a garbage bag that was almost full and nearly as big as he was. She slowed down and watched for a minute. He was picking up the paper and other trash the truck had dropped that day and was putting it in the bag. She rolled down the window of her car and asked, “Chris, what are you doing?”

“Do you remember the picture of the beach we looked at in Primary class yesterday?” he asked. “Well, I’m trying to do what Jesus Christ might do if he saw our street today.”

Photograph by Jed Call

Story Time in Galilee, by Del Parson