by Sheila

Sheila has been completing small acts of service with her children every day for a month and journaling those experiences on the “Pennies of Time” blog.

A month ago, I decided to complete a small act of service with my children, every day.  So, each day for the past month, we have had, what we call, a “Penny of Time” Adventure.

Some of our favorite experiences that we had in the past month:  Leaving Ziploc bags full of coins at vending machines in ER rooms, taking donations for children who are homeless, picking up trash, taking breads and fruits to the fire station, writing nice notes, and befriending others.

As anyone of us would have predicted, good things happened in our family:  We drew closer.  Serving together has definitely strengthened our family bonds.  When in a fight, my boys initiate the resolution and come to peace more often without me than with my help.  The Spirit is more obvious in our home.

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“Emily, you have to let him preside in the home.  He should be the one to lead prayer, call everyone to Family Home Evening, and direct things in matters of the priesthood in general.  If he’s not doing that, you need to help guide him to be the presider.”

This was the last piece of advice Sister M. ever gave me, and it didn’t bother me one bit.  Her last calling was given through the stake to help young families have better FHE’s. So, at an Enrichment activity in November a few years ago, as we were sewing stuffed pumpkins, I was asking her what I could do to get my husband to participate more in Family Home Evenings.

I wasn’t crazy about her answer, but because it came from Sister M, it just didn’t bother me.

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It was a small gesture I had seen hundreds of times before, my father pausing for a brief moment to appreciate a thing of beauty. This time it was an arrangement of lilies that he had stopped to smell as he walked towards the pulpit to bear his testimony. I smiled to myself, it was so uniquely my father. But from behind I heard an unmistakable snigger as a girl from my Laurel class leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Your dad is so gay.”

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Have you ever been so twitter-pated that you did something silly? Or embarrassing? Or crazy? Or all of the above? Tell us, because even feminists fall in crazy love…

I’ll go first:

My visa to move to Australia and marry the man of my dreams had arrived. I was sure to start out my future on the right note, so… years before, a sorority sister shared a story about how she took a flight one summer to visit her boyfriend. To surprise him, she wore a super-short mini skirt and a really long black wig that was opposite to her more conservative look and short blonde hair. She walked off the plane, went over and “started totally kissing him.” I thought that was the coolest thing ever! So I wanted to do that, but only for true love, not just a boyfriend. So when my marriage visa was granted, I decided I would do something similar.

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This past fall, our stake president introduced me to a new way to look at the miracles of Jesus feeding the multitude, which I wanted to share here. The feeding of the multitude is the only miracle that is mentioned in all four gospels, and in Matthew and Mark, there are multiple versions of the miracle. It has obviously touched the hearts of the early Christians for it to be recorded so often, and is dear to us today.

To feed thousands of people to the point of being full with only a few loaves and fish is huge and with baskets of leftovers is huge. To try to figure out how you’d have to physically do that (would you re-arrange the molecules? beam extra loaves in from a hidden teleportation device?) is mind boggling. We don’t know. My stake president offered another idea.

Who was in the multitude? Probably a range of people of different socioeconomic status, families, tribes of Israel. Perhaps there were people in the crowd who had brought some extra food in their own bags. Perhaps, when the basket came around, they saw that the crowd was huge and they had a little extra, and maybe moved by the compassion and healing miracles they saw Christ demonstrate or the teachings of love and charity they heard, or the example of Christ’s examples in giving all their own bread and fish, they took from their own bags and placed their extra into the baskets.

And thousands of people were fed. And there was plenty left over.

I don’t believe that this version makes the miracle of feeding the multitudes less miraculous. It is a miracle to have power over the physical world, but I think it may be even more of a miracle to have the power to change the hearts of human beings.

Do we have extra in our bags that we can put into the baskets and share with our community? Does Christ inspire us to action?

“Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” John 6:14

This Christmas, as we celebrate the man who changed the hearts of millions of people, let’s remember to let him change ours as well.

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