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Originally Posted by jay santos
My neighbor went down to El Salvador with 100 other people (local LDS) and built a few homes for charity just last month. Does that count?
But you're talking about a very narrow view of service.
I've read dozens of Mormon good will pieces done by media outside of Utah. I'm told frequently by non-LDS outside of Utah that LDS are known for being charitable and service-oriented. We are do-gooders and everyone knows us that way.
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About this El Salvador thing: was it officially sponsored by the church? Or was it the case of many members getting together in a non-official way? Was it done through another agency that organized it? If so, who was backing this agency? Was it a church?
As an example, I worked a little bit with an organization that worked closely with a church in ongoing yearly or multi-yearly charitable efforts in a 3rd world country. This wasn't a national church, it was a local church.
We are do-gooders, yes. Unfortunately we think we do more good than anyone else. And it isn't true.
When all the Katrina stuff hit, after a good amount of time, the stake got involved because the Red Cross had run out of manpower, (this was a good couple weeks into the crisis). You should have heard our fast and testimony meeting, it was like Rameumpton. I had to chuckle, because as part of joining my work's effort, I had seen the effort from Day 1, and I saw the churches that were THERE and ORGANIZED and getting the work done. So I chuckled at the notion that we were the one true church doing the good work, when in fact it was nothing more than an after-thought mop-up effort.
Trust me, Jay, you just won't understand until you see what others are doing. I certainly didn't get it.