We Love Those We Serve

by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone

of the First Quorum of the Seventy

As young people, we quite often stand in long lines to get tickets to a concert, a football or basketball game, a movie, and numerous other activities. I have never appreciated standing in lines, long or short. However, there is one line I would stand in as long as necessary. I want to be at the head of the line for those who line up to serve.

I believe this subject is intertwined with the Aaronic Priesthood. I would like to discuss the work and the motivation behind the work.

Many years back as a young husband and father, I worked for a grocery chain. My shift was from about 5:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M., without a lunch hour. I preferred it that way. One time during the week I had a day off. The stake president had announced a need for brethren to go out to Cedar Fort, where our stake farm was located, to get the bales of hay out of the fields before it rained.

I volunteered to go out on my day off. A member of the stake presidency, Francis Bromley, took me out to the farm. Much of the hay had been baled the preceding Saturday. I suggested to President Bromley that he drive the tractor. I would load the hay on the skids, transfer it to the flatbed truck, then haul it to a location where it was to be stacked. It was a hot summer day. There seemed to be no breeze at all, and no shade or cloud cover. I was accustomed to hard work but not in the sun. For hours we worked together retrieving the baled hay from the fields.

I can recall to this day how tired I was. Hay dust and dirt filled my nostrils and was caked on my arms and face. Sweat poured off me. My hands grew numb and my arms and legs were fatigued, but we worked on until the work was done. I remember the feelings I had at the end of the day. President Bromley somehow knew that I had worked with all my energy to save him as much work as possible. He was not a young man, and the work was heavy. He was very kind in his appraisal of the work we had done.

The greater reward came to me on the way home. I realized that I had worked for the Lord about as hard as I knew how to work. My sinuses burned from the dust and dirt, my eyes were filled with hay dust, and perspiration and alfalfa clung to my skin and clothes. I was exhausted and I think dehydrated. My head throbbed and my muscles ached, but way down deep inside of me there was a feeling of pride. For a few moments at the end of that day I drank from the living waters of Christ. I felt the cooling breeze of service, and I felt the shade of contentment to my soul.

I have never forgotten how I felt about President Bromley. Serving him and trying to do an extra measure of work to protect him filled my soul with a deep love for him. I knew that he could see into my heart and that he knew what I was trying to do for him. I think he loved me also. I believe, however, the greater love will come to those who serve someone else. If you want to love someone, serve that person. Service is work. It takes effort.

It has always been easy for me to accept work assignments. I have never resented it or felt imposed upon, no matter how often I was asked. Somehow God built into my spirit a great feeling of privilege to do anything in the kingdom. It did not seem a sacrifice; it has always been a blessing.

The Aaronic Priesthood in our ward often went to Welfare Square to assist in canning, labeling, or other work. Generally we were given a little slip of paper that told how many hours we had labored. To this day there is a special pride in my heart as I look back and recall, not just slips of paper with a few handwritten figures, but time put in by me on the Lord’s errand.

As an elder in Boise, one evening I was working on the stake farm with Brother Olsen from the bishopric. As I recollect, only the two of us were there. Brother Olsen worked for the Idaho Power Company. Again, he was a few years older than I, and he was directing the work. One of the jobs we had to do was to repair some power lines. Ever since my childhood I have feared electricity. Even now I turn off all the power in the house if I am going to repair some electrical equipment. That evening the last thing we had to do before it got dark was to climb a telephone pole and splice two wires together that furnished power for part of the farm.

Brother Olsen offered to go up the pole. But though I feared what had to be done, I was younger and knew that I should do it. I asked him what to do. He gave me clear and complete instructions. I was to climb up the pole, take one wire and strip off the insulation about six inches, then take the other wire and strip off the insulation about six inches, join the wires together, and then reinsulate.

I asked him if the power was off. He assured me it was. I climbed the pole and followed his instructions. No one will know how difficult it was for me to take a large, high-powered line in my hand, strip off the insulation, then hold that wire and the connecting wire in my hand, splice them together, and then reinsulate them. Merlin was right. There was no power in the lines. I was absolutely safe.

The thing that I remember about that experience is that I had some doubt as to whether the power was off or not. I was fearful that someone else on the farm might throw a breaker and turn on the electricity. Nevertheless, my faith in Merlin and the fact that I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do was enough to overcome my fear.

I have always loved service in the Church because it aligns us with the finest men on the face of the earth.

Work is a discipline. It takes energy, commitment, and time. Work is necessary for repentance. Sweat and effort under the right conditions purge and cleanse the soul.

During my first assignment in Boise, I was called to serve as the priests quorum adviser. There were 23 priests in the old Boise Ninth Ward. Two were serving in the military. Nineteen of the 21 received individual awards. The bishop of the ward was Floyd Fletcher. What a bishop. What a boy’s man. What a Scouter. Every year the ward provided welfare to the storehouse through the beans we raised, picked, and canned. When the beans would be ready for harvest, the whole ward had to be mobilized. The men and boys of the priesthood would pick the beans, the sisters would cut and clean them, and then we would take them to the cannery to can.

We would pick the beans early in the morning before going to work. The bean patch buzzed with brethren and sisters working up and down the rows. Working alongside my priests was a joy I shall never forget. I got close to them. Even though it was an early hour in the morning and fairly cool, we would soon work up a sweat. We would talk about swimming in the cold mountain rivers where we had our annual Aaronic Priesthood outings. We shared personal stories, laughed and joked, and had a great time. It was fun. No one resented being asked to work. In fact, I think people would have felt left out if they hadn’t been involved.

I remember one morning, about 7:30, when we were finishing up so we could get back home to get ready to go to work. One of the priests challenged all the others and myself to take a swim in the canal. In only a moment, a priests quorum adviser and all the priests were swimming in the canal. At that early hour it took our breath away. I can still feel the love, camaraderie, and fellowship with a quorum of priests who had gotten up about 4:30 or 5:00 A.M., worked for a couple of hours on the Lord’s farm, and then went swimming in the canal together.

We had a wonderful priests quorum, and we were very close. On one of our Aaronic Priesthood summer camps, we camped on the North Fork of the Payette River. One night about 11:00, after our traditional campfire, we went swimming in the river. It was a clear night. The moon was overhead. We had a special swimming hole in the river where we swam during the day. You could dive off a rock into a deep hole and then the water current would sweep you down stream 30 or 40 yards. It was great. We swam for about half an hour. Then we got dressed, and somewhere near midnight all of my priests and I locked arms and walked back down the road to camp singing “Redeemer of Israel.” To this day, almost every time I sing that hymn I have a reflection in my mind from years past of a group of Aaronic Priesthood boys and their leader walking down a dirt canyon road, under a full moon, singing together.

The work of the Aaronic Priesthood is necessary. Work is service, and service is work. We need all kinds of activities in the Aaronic Priesthood, including athletics, Scouting, dances, and parties. But these must be blended with work if a quorum will really function the way it should. Without the work of the Aaronic Priesthood, the quorum will never function as it should. Work brings about a blending of spirits, a compatibility among quorum members, a trust and reliance on each other, and an esprit de corps or pride that comes only to those who pay the price.

We are assigned by the bishopric to perform some services. We need to faithfully fulfill every assignment. Then there is another work which no one may see or reward you for. It is the work you do in a quiet way around your home without being told. It is keeping your room clean, taking pride in it, and watching for opportunities to do work that will relieve the pressure on your parents. Such things include mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, shoveling the walks in the winter, putting out the garbage, doing the dishes, and vacuuming the house.

My young friends, you actually have to experience the internal rewards and feelings that come when you do some things on your own volition rather than waiting to be told. You will gain a sense of maturity that brings rewards far beyond what doing the same work brings after your parents tell you to do it.

When I was about ten or eleven, many of our relatives came to visit. There must have been 35 or 40. Mother had invited them all to dinner. After dinner everyone went in the other room and sat down to visit. There were piles of dirty dishes and silverware everywhere. The food had not been put away, and there were dirty pots and pans from all the preparations.

I remember thinking that later on everyone would leave, and my mother would have all the cleaning up to do. An idea struck me. I started cleaning up. It was in the days before electric dishwashers. Mother had always been very clean, and she taught us how to wash and wipe dishes correctly. I started in on this mountain of work. Finally, about three hours later, I had finished drying the last dish. I had put away all the food, cleaned off all the counters, the sinks, and the floor. The kitchen was spotless.

I will never forget the look on Mom’s face later on that night when all the guests had left and she came into the kitchen to clean up. I was wet from my chest to my knees. It was worth every particle of effort I had put into it just to see the look on Mom’s face. It was a mixture of emotion, relief, and pride. I made a decision then that I would try to put that look back on her face over and over and over again. I think I was able to do that.

Now no one should suppose that I did everything right. I could have been a lot better, but I think Mom would agree that I honestly tried.

Work in your home, with the members of your quorum, by assignment from the bishop, but work. Work is essential to our maturity. People may grow up physically, but without work they are never fully mature. The work of the priesthood is no more or less than service to God, for “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings [quorum members, mom, dad, brother, sister, neighbor] ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

Illustrated by Paul Mann