Helping hands

While reading the assignment this week, I was overwhelmed with not so much "proclaiming the gospel" but "perfecting the saints." One of the questions from the student pamphlet is: "What are some specific things that you can do today to rescue someone in need?" Then the assigned scriptures listed many, many characteristics that would help in rescuing people.

It seems to be that in my life right now there are many people who sort of missed the boat where gospel doctrine is concerned. That is, they went to church like they were supposed to and participated in what they were supposed to, but were never really taught the doctrines behind what, why and how we do what we do. This has led to a breakdown in faith and testimony. So, as I read the scriptures this week, I thought about them. I also thought about people that I have difficulties with at times. Here are attributes that will help me rescue them and me in the process:

Faith, hope, charity, love (notice charity and love are listed as seperate things), virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, humility, diligence, suffers long, envieth not, kind, not puffed up, seeketh not her own, seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endures all things.

I don't think all of these things come at once, or that we have to have them all at once in order to rescue someone in need. I do think though, that it is some or all of these things come (whether at once or a few at a time) by understanding the workings, communications, and purposes of the Holy Spirit. So, my answer to the question, what can we do to rescue someone in need is: practice asking for, listening to and acting on the communications of the Holy Spirit. If we can do this we are more likely to be at least some of the list above, or whatever is needed for a certain situation. Then as we become familiar with how it feels to act on prompting and having confidence in the directions of the Holy Ghost and ourselves, our understanding of charity widens and our desire to have it strengthens

5 Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.
6 And if thou art faithful unto the end thou shalt have a crown of immortality, and eternal life in the mansions which I have prepared in the house of my Father.