Ammon's Missionary Talk

The following is the talk Ammon gave in Church as his "Missionary Talk." He found all the resources, quotes and scriptures. I helped him organize it. His testimony at the end are his exact words.  I thought this was pretty impressive.

Service
By Elder Clark

Good morning brothers and sisters. I would like to begin my talk first of all with a quote from a General Conference address given by Elder David L. Beck in April 2013 entitled Your Sacred Duty to Minister to Others. 

Minister every day. Opportunities are all around you. Look for them. Ask the Lord to help you recognize them. You will find that most consist of small, sincere acts that help others become followers of Jesus Christ. 

I would like to talk a little bit about service and why it’s important and how we can do it. As Elder Beck said, we should be serving in one way or another every day. The acts of service don’t have to be huge and time-consuming. They should just be thoughtful things you do throughout your day. Elder Beck gives us more ideas of how to minister. He said, Start in your own home. This is where you can do your most important ministering.
He then suggested a great way for young people to minister. Quote:
Do you want to try an interesting experiment? The next time your mother asks for your help around the house, say something like, “Thank you for asking, Mom. I would love to help.” Then watch her reaction. Some of you might want to brush up on your first aid skills before you try this. You may send her into shock. After you revive her, you’ll find a noticeable improvement in your relationship with her and an increase of the Spirit in your home.
That’s just one way to minister to your family; there are many others. You minister as you speak kind words to family members. You minister as you treat your siblings like your best friends.
We, as priesthood holders also have a duty to minister in our quorums. One of the kindest ways to serve and minister is to sincerely care about our quorum members. We need to pay attention to their activity and their needs and do our best to support them.

In Mosiah 2:17, King Benjamin said, “And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."

Have you noticed that when we talk about missionaries that go out into the world we say they are “serving” in certain locations? Why do we use the term serve? Because missionaries are trying to find God’s children and teach them who they are and what they should do to return to Heavenly Father. Most of them don’t know about any of this. Elder May will be serving Heavenly Fathers’ children that reside in Germany. He will search for them. He will teach them. He will serve, physically in any way they need. That is what King Benjamin meant that when we serve our fellow beings, we are only serving God. He loves all of His children and wants them to return to Him. We help accomplish that.
I am serving in a different capacity. I am still a missionary but I help more with the temporal side of things. At the Deseret Meat facility, I do the orientation for the volunteers. I tell them what they need to do to be safe and to keep the products safe and clean for those who will eat it. I show the safety video. I fold gloves (which was hard for me to learn to do). I shred paper. I just do whatever they need me to do. This, too, is helping the work of the Lord. I, too, am serving.

I will go through the temple on Saturday and after I have done that, I will be qualified to help serve and work in the temple as a volunteer. We all know that work in the temple is for those who have already died and can’t do their own work. That is the highest form of service.
Elder Ballard talked about service in a conference talk in October 2012. His talk is entitled: Anxiously Engaged.
He said, We are to love God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us—our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens.
How do we ingrain this love of Christ into our hearts? There is one simple daily practice that can make a difference for every member of the Church” That simple practice is: In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children. Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for someone to help. 

Elder Ballard ended his talk with some good advice. He said, I know that if you do this—at home, at school, at work, and at church—the Spirit will guide you, and you will be able to discern those in need of a particular service that only you may be able to give. You will be prompted by the Spirit and magnificently motivated to help pollinate the world with the pure love of Christ and His gospel. 

President Spencer W. Kimball said: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 82).

One of the fun things about my mission is the assignment I have chosen to tag photos. There are many church service missionaries that are called to be photographers. They submit their photos to the church to have them available for Church media. They call me a “tagger.” I go into the large file of photos and tag them by deciding what category they should be assigned. I have tagged more than a thousand photos since I started a month ago. I really enjoy it. I actually found a photo of Pres. Tervort and a second one of Sister Tervort serving on their mission with Family History. I was pretty excited to see them in those pictures. So I got to tag them.
Last Sunday evening we went to a special devotional at the Conference Center for Young Church Service Missionaries. It was a great night. The very first person I met there was a service missionary that wanted to take my picture. There were several missionaries doing that. They were happy to know that I was tagging pictures. If their pictures don’t get tagged, they don’t get used. I am actually serving not only the Church, but these missionaries in helping them accomplish what they have been called to do. It is a simple task. It isn’t hard. Most people in the church don’t even know about this program. It makes me happy to be doing what I can to help the Church move forward.

I love the words to the song Have I Done Any Good? “Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped any one in need? Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed in deed. Has anyone’s burden been lighter today because I was willing to share? Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way? When they needed my help was I there? Then wake up and do something more than dream of your mansion above. Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure, a blessing of duty and love.”

I’m so grateful for the opportunities I am having on this mission. I love my mission!

I would like to leave you with my testimony. I know God lives and loves us. If we continually hasten the work of salvation by being anxiously engaged in service to others, we will come together to build God’s kingdom. I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today. If we abide by their counsels, we will one day live with God again.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.