Area Presidency Message
Love, Serve and Minister to Others
We find our motivation for serving others in the understanding of God’s purpose for us, His children, which is to bring to pass immortality and eternal life through Jesus Christ and His Atonement.
In a revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith on 6 June 1831, the Lord declared: “And again, I will give unto you a pattern in all things” (D&C 52:14).
Patterns are templates, guides, steps, and paths that someone should follow to be in alignment with God’s purpose, which is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
Throughout His mortal ministry, our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ has shown unto us the great example about how to love, serve and minister to others. He not only taught it but He also lived it. He invites us to “follow his steps” (1 Peter 2:21), to love as He loved, to serve as He served, and to minister to others.
President Spencer W. Kimball (1895-1985) urged the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to engage in “simple acts of love and service”, as ministering to others will bless others’ lives as well as our own.1
“A young mother on an overnight flight with a two-year-old daughter was stranded by bad weather in Chicago airport without food or clean clothing for the child and without money. She was . . . pregnant and threatened with miscarriage, so she was under doctor’s instructions not to carry the child unless it was essential. Hour after hour she stood in one line after another, trying to get a flight to Michigan. The terminal was noisy, full of tired, frustrated, grumpy passengers, and she heard critical references to her crying child and to her sliding her child along the floor with her foot as the line moved forward. No one offered to help with the soaked, hungry, exhausted child.
“Then, the woman later reported, ‘someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, “Is there something I could do to help you?” With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.
“Several years later, President Kimball received a letter that read, in part:
“‘Dear President Kimball:
“‘I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich, West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much. . . .
“‘I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some twenty-one years ago in the Chicago airport. The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a . . . screaming child, in . . . distress, waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her. She had experienced four previous miscarriages, which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift.
“‘You comforted the crying child and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off my mother. I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan.
“‘I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example.’”2
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught: “Love is the beginning, the middle and the end of the pathway of discipleship. It comforts, counsels, cures, and consoles. . . .
“Love is the greatest commandment—all others hang upon it. It is our focus as followers of the living Christ”3.
The people that followed Alma into the wilderness humbled themselves after receiving the word of God taught by the prophet Alma. They made a covenant—despite their circumstances, their challenges and situation—to be called the people of God, bear one another’s burdens, to mourn with those that mourn, to comfort those that need comfort and to always stand as witnesses of God. Their lives changed: they became converted unto the Lord and united with His Church and it said that the Church leaders in Alma’s day, “did watch over their people, and did nourish them with things pertaining to righteousness” (see Mosiah 23:18).
Throughout my life, I have noticed that when someone understands the blessings and the power of the covenants made through baptism, no matter how long he or she has been a member of the Church, he or she approaches his or her callings and duties in the Church with great enthusiasm and joy.
The New Testament does not record all the events that happened during the Last Supper, but it does record a significant service performed by the Saviour. We learn how He knelt to wash the Apostle’s feet. (See John 13:3–17) What a marvellous example that we learn from the Saviour how to serve others. He invites us to commit and to devote our lives as members of the Church to serve our fellow brothers and sisters, even those that are not members of the Church.
The Saviour taught: he that is the greatest among you, let him be least. (See Matthew 23:11, Luke 22:26.)
“A new commandment I give unto you,” he said, “that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34–35).
I invite you, my beloved brothers, and sisters, to love, serve and minister to others as the Saviour would do it and promise that our own lives will be filled with light and joy as we follow the Saviour’s example.
Thierry K. Mutombo was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2020. He is married to Tshayi Nathalie Sinda. They are the parents of six children.