This tendency to be so self-congratulatory

[MikeWaters]

Back when the church was involved in sending down groups of men to help with the Katrina cleanup, I heard more than once the whole "he said that there were only two church who had helped them, the Mormons and the Latter-day Saints." One of those instances was my stake president.

Just this past week, a man on the High Council recalled service rendered by church members in Oklahoma after a tornado. He said he was told by someone the exact same line as above.

I don't think either my SP or the High Councilman was lying. I don't necessarily believe that either report was true either.

What bothers me more is the implied smugness. Yes, I know it's humor, and it's funny. But sometimes I feel that we are so insular as a church, that we don't know what other churches are doing for service, and we automatically assume that we do the most (which I believe to hardly be the case).

It comes across as P-R-I-D-E. And not the good kind.

My ward is having a stake service project in November. Each ward in the stake is to have a 4 hour service project, all on the same day to maximize publicity. We were discussing possible projects in the Ward Council and I was inquiring about the scope of our ambition. Another person on the council says "this is a show up, stay for 4 hours, leave kind of deal." In other words, grunt labor, no real planning or prep work. That's fine, we are all busy, but let's not pretend that this is some big deal.

We are so damn busy, most of us in this church, between callings and home teaching and visiting teaching and meeting after meeting, that it's hard to get really excited about big time expenditures and projects. It's a tough deal.

[Archaea]

Good correct observations.