We've lost our marbles!!!

...in more ways than one! ha ha ha

Last October in General Conference for the LDS Church, President Thomas S. Monson gave a talk about serving others. He told about expressing his birthday-wish for the members of the Church to find someone to serve. The response to that was overwhelming. President Monson then told about a Primary (children's organization) group that filled a jar with "warm fuzzies" each time they did an act of service.

This talk inspired a Family Home Evening lesson, last year. Although we are a very loving and demonstrative family, we felt that we weren't a "warm-fuzzy" kind of clan. So we devised a different way to monitor the progress of any service we did. I got a jar and labeled it "Service Marbles".


Then each member of the family got a different colored marble. Every time one of us performed an act of service, we lost a marble to the jar. The acts of service ranged from simple, little, often unnoticed acts; to big long-term helpfulness that had a huge impact on someone. It was a wonderful, on-going lesson for our family.

We ended our marble-project with last night's Family Home Evening lesson. We talked about feeling the Spirit and listening to its promptings to know when and how we could continue serving others. Our last act of service was to deliver treats and thank-you notes to neighbors and Ward members who have been of service to us and our Ward-family. With that final act of service, we filled our jar.

So, while we truly HAVE lost our marbles, it was well worth it.