Tis the season to show others you care! As the Thanksgiving and Christmas season approach, we all look for ways to serve others and show them we care. Here’s a list of ideas for acts of service (some of them very small!) you can do right here in Rexburg.
Here are some great talks and devotionals regarding serving others:
- Call and talk to a family member who lives at least an hour away
- Focus on not saying anything negative for a day
- Write a letter to a missionary
- Smile at someone as they walk by
- Pick up trash outside
- Rake someone’s yard (or shovel snow!)
- Pay for the person behind you in the drive-thru
- Attend the temple
- Give a stranger a compliment
- Say good morning to someone you don’t normally talk to
- Write a thank-you card to someone who has helped you recently
- Give someone a hug
- Hold open the door for someone
- Be extra courteous to pedestrians crossing the street
- Make a treat for someone
- Do something nice for the person/ family you visit or home teach
- Remember to say please and thank-you…even for simple things
- Give someone a high-five and tell them good job for something
- Leave an anonymous note for someone
- Send a card to a stranger in the phone book
- Make breakfast for your spouse or roommate
- Throw away someone’s trash for them
- Leave a large tip for your waiter/ waitress
- Babysit for someone’s kids so they can go to the temple
- Tell someone you love them
- Tell someone a joke
- Tell someone why you appreciate them
- Write and send a letter to someone you love
- Do a chore for your spouse/ roommate that they usually do for you
- Put $10 in a random gas pump
- Index at least 20 names
- Visit the nursing home and talk to the residents
- Go Christmas caroling (or Thanksgiving caroling…be creative)
- Take a treat to those waiting in line at the testing center
- Take a treat to those who finish their test at the testing center
- Write your roommates notes of appreciation
- Get involved with Activities on campus (they even have SERVICE activities!)
- Volunteer at the animal/ horse shelter
- Give someone a ride home from the grocery store
- Write a letter/ email to your grandparents
- Clean out your closet and donate clothes you don’t wear to Deseret Industries/ Goodwill
- Bring your bishop a snack for his late after-church meetings
- Learn how to do family history
- Pay your fast offering
- Donate supplies to the Family Crisis Center
- Pray for someone who needs a little extra help
- Help someone who’s moving
- Help clean the chapel after services
- Let someone go in front of you while you’re waiting in a checkout line or in traffic
- Take a treat to the fire station
Remember, it’s the little things that count. Elder M. Russell Ballard said “It is my humble prayer, brothers and sisters, that we will ask in our daily prayers for the inspiration to find someone for whom we can provide some meaningful service, including the service of sharing the gospel truths and our testimonies. At the end of each day, may we be able to say yes to the questions: “Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need?””
Pictures from the LDS Media Library
50 Rexburg Service Ideas
Vegetarians come in all shapes and sizes. The most strict vegetarian diet is a vegan diet which restricts you from eating any animal product. There are those lacto-vegetarians who will also eat dairy products and lacto-ovo-vegetarians who will eat dairy and eggs. And then there are the people who are mostly vegetarian but will eat chicken or a burger every once in a while. Because there are so many varieties of vegetarians, it is hard to classify how many there are in the United States but polls place the number somewhere between 5-13%.
What are the benefits of having a vegetarian diet? Many include being more lean, having lower levels of serum cholesterol, having lower blood pressure and decreasing risk of colon cancer. Other benefits include having a diet lower in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol. You also reduce your risk of obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.What concerns are there with being a vegetarian? Because vegetarians are cutting out meat and other animal products, they may be at risk for iron deficiency, insufficient calcium, Vitamin D deficiency, and Vitamin B-12 deficiency.
To get iron eat: Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark green leafy vegetables and dried fruit.
To get calcium eat: dark green vegetables like broccoli, kale and collard greens. Also eat foods fortified with calcium such as juice, cereal and soy milk.
To get Vitamin D eat: Vitamin D fortified foods such as milk, orange juice and cereal, and get a sufficient amount of sun exposure. You may need a supplement if you cannot get enough in your diet.
To get Vitamin B-12 eat: a Vitamin B-12 supplement. This vitamin is found exclusively in animal products.
Getting Started For some, going cold turkey when it comes to making a switch in their diet can be hard. One way to make it easier is to each week increase the number of meatless meals you eat. Search on the internet for simple substitutions for ingredients or look up vegetarian cookbooks. There are many sources out there!
If vegetarianism is something you’ve been interested in trying out, make sure to do your research first so you can be sure to get all the nutrients your body needs.
Sources:
Digging a vegetarian diet. (2012, July). Retrieved from http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/Jul2012/Feature1
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2012, July 11). Vegetarian diet: How to get the best nutrition. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/vegetarian-diet/HQ01596/METHOD=print
Vorvick, L. (2013, October 31). Vegetarian diet. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002465.htm
Wikipedia Authors. (2013, November 4). Vegetarianism by country. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country
Picture: http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/vegetarian-diet/HQ01596/METHOD=print
http://letsbraw.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-tell-vegan-from-vegetarian.html
So You Want to be a Vegetarian?
"First things first...We are truly blessed to have the means to set a pretty table and invite our friends to join us for good food and fellowship. I am mindful that many are not so fortunate. My daughter has a passion for the work of the Food Bank. As a singer-songwriter, she has written and recorded a song that is the anthem for the world wide Crop Hunger Walk project. Her song, "Raise Your Voice" is featured in their video. I've included a link in the side margin of my blog. During this beautiful season when we celebrate harvest and Thanksgiving, I hope that it will encourage you to support projects in your community that contribute to the effort to overcome hunger.
Today was the Kappa Alpha Theta Flaming Festival, always a delightful time to reconnect with friends whom you don't see regularly the rest of the year. Yesterday was spent setting up tables for the enjoyment of those attending. The festival was a marvelous time, as always, and tonight I am worn slick. I'll share pics of the wonderful tablescapes over the next few weeks.
This evening I'm sharing a table that I created for out of town guests who were here last weekend. We didn't end up using the table because Sweet Mister decided that he wanted to take us all out to dinner.
Games table in the living room...flip-top tabletop to create a 60" round table for six....you know the drill.
The door bell rang the morning that I was brainstorming ideas for the table...
...and these lovely blossoms were sitting on the front porch, a thank you gift from friends whom we entertained with an evening out the previous week. I set them in the Coalport Bittersweet centerpiece bowl, and I was off to the races.
I paired the bowl and flowers with a quartet of cobalt depression glass candlesticks and a grouping of faux pumpkins. Centerpiece...done.
I look forward to using this grouping again...another time. Maybe I'll lay my table with it once more when you happen to pass my way. I'd really like that!
This week I'm joining the following parties...with thanks to the hostesses!
Bittersweet for Fall, 11.6.13
Most of the time, the emotions experienced after childbirth include excitement, joy, fear and anxiety. On some occasions, women will experience the “baby blues” which can insist of mood swings and crying spells. On a rare occasion, this can be a more serious condition known as postpartum depression, a form of depression. This will occur in 10-15% of all new mothers.
How do you know if you’re experiencing merely the baby blues or the more serious postpartum depression? Here are differences in symptoms according to the Mayo Clinic.
Baby Blues: Mood swings, anxiety, sadness, irritability, crying, decreased concentration and trouble sleeping
Postpartum Depression: (symptoms may start out the same as the baby blues but then may increase) Loss of appetite, insomnia, intense irritability and anger, overwhelming fatigue, loss of interest in sexual intimacy, lack of joy in life, severe mood swings, feeling of shame, guilt or inadequacy, difficulty bonding with baby, withdrawl from friends and family, thoughts of harming self or baby
If left untreated, postpartum depression can last for months or even years.
Postpartum depression can be caused by physical, emotional, or lifestyle factors such as a drop in hormones, lack of sleep, exhaustion, or difficulty breastfeeding.
If your symptoms don’t fade after two weeks, get worse, make it hard for you to care for your baby, make it hard to complete everyday tasks or you have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, then you should set up an appointment to speak with your provider and get help.
The Gospel Perspective
Sources:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008). Prevalence of self-reported postpartum depressive symptoms --- 17 states, 2004--2005 (57(14);361-366). Retrieved from website: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5714a1.htm
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2012, September 11). Postpartum depression. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/postpartum-depression/DS00546/DSECTION=symptoms
Pictures: http://yoganjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/09/reviewing-over-my-history-with-my-mom.html
Postpartum Depression
By Mike Garvey, Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project Intern
These days, it seems that victories for abortion access and rights are rare. The news frequently portrays stories about restriction, not expansion, of access. So, supporters of access received something of a win Monday, when a district court judge in Texas issued a permanent injunction on a particular provision – that doctors performing abortions must have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the site – of a restrictive new state abortion law. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought by, among others, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and a number of women’s health centers in Texas. The judge in this case ruled that the provision had nothing to do with safety and more to do with placing an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion. But Thursday, the Fifth Circuit of Appeals – following an emergency appeal by the state – overturned the ruling, allowing the law to go into effect while a legal case against it moves forward in court.
This isn't a small decision. It’s a disaster. Because the law was allowed to go into effect, according to the New York Times, as many as 13 of Texas’ 36 health centers that currently provide abortion services will be forced to stop providing them.
What the appeals court’s decision won’t decrease, however, is the number of women who decide that abortion is the right course of action for them. These are women who might live in areas those 13 clinics would ordinarily serve. They’re women who, because of this restrictive law, will be forced to travel long distances and potentially plan multi-day trips to access abortion services. They’re women who might not be able to afford to travel. They’re women who, having no feasible option, might decide to undergo an unsafe abortion.
The appeals court itself found that the regulation might increase the cost of accessing a provider while simultaneously decreasing the number of providers. But because those are incidental effects of a regulation that serves a “valid purpose,” the regulation was allowed to stand.
The assertion that this provision is about women’s health is laughable. Texas is a huge state. Did its government not grasp that the admitting provisions requirement would make it close to impossible for poor and rural women to access abortion?
We know the answer - the effect of decreased access isn't incidental. This is a law signed by a governor whose stated goal is to wipe out abortion, period. It’s the intent of a state government that doesn't trust women to make decisions about their own lives, and values its own misguided judgment more than the people who actually provide abortion care. No, it’s not incidental. It’s patently intentional and leading us back to a pre-Roe world.
Mike Garvey is an MSW candidate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Big Blow for Women’s Health in Texas
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