Our ward encompasses a fairly affluent area. We are not affluent, we just happen to live in the boundaries. Anyhow, in the 4+ years we've been here, we notice that the compassionate service requests that go out are a bit ridiculous. For example requests for free cars and appliances (which members have donated), requests for free furniture (dressers etc. which one could definitely live without), meals for TWO WEEKS following surgery even though the person has an able-bodied husband and 4 teenage children who could probably step up and cook, etc. They clearly do not understand the difference between needs and wants here.

Maybe my annoyance is because DH and I have always prided ourselves on being self-sufficient. We worked our asses off to get to where we are. We put ourselves through school. We worked opposite schedules so one of us was always with the kids and they never had to be in daycare. We lived in tiny apartments with very little furniture, shared one car, and slowly worked our way up. Yet, here, people just expect that ward members should make life cushy for them in any circumstance.

Now we have a surgeon asking for someone to put his live-in nephew up for a couple of nights--even though this guy lives in one of the biggest houses around and could certainly afford to pay for a hotel for a night if needed--because he has other relatives coming into town for a funeral that want to stay with him. I'm not sure why they need to relocate the nephew and I'm not sure why the other relatives don't get a hotel. We have for 3 different funerals we traveled out of state for. I think that's what most people do in these circumstances. It just seems a little excessive.

I know, I'm not sounding very compassionate am I? It's probably because I'm burned out on the weekly non-necessary compassionate service requests.

And, okay, that's the end of me ranting today :) But seriously...

Wow, those requests are over the top! When my husband lost his job, we couldn't bring ourselves to ask for ANYTHING - and we ended up losing our house

LOL. Reminds me of the time one family requested meals brought in for weeks on end for a funeral. And after that they decided maybe they also should have the ward furnish BREAKFAST for their visiting relatives.

Apparently they were all so grief stricken that among 20-odd people no one could cook or buy meals.

Eventually people rebelled.The bishop wanted to put an end to such nonsense but the compassionate service leader sat there with tears in her eyes, saying she needed to fulfill her calling (with the help of everyone else).

The bish then said for her to stop asking people, but if anyone still wanted to help out on their own they could do so.

When I was a yW leader the RS asked for the young women to go clean a ladies house while she was on vacation in France.

I told her they would be happy to. They only charge 10.00 and hour for each girl working. That was the end of that conversation.

Now do you see why I never fit in?

I have no problem helping out when someone has a genuine need, but I get irritated when I spend all day cooking a meal for a family of 7 and then get a call that they aren't there because they're visiting her father, and then I catch her and her friend at the movie theater about to watch Bride Wars the next day. I'm sorry, but if you are well enough to visit people and go see a bad movie with your BFF, you are well enough to cook your own food.

Last week a request went out for a coffee table, queen mattress, bedding, dresser, clothing, and various other items. Um, I am not your furniture store, and if you cannot afford these things yourself, you probably should move to a less expensive area. We're surrounded by much more affordable towns. Just sayin' And who NEEDS a coffe table?!?

The young men's president once asked me to go with him to check out a request for yard work. He had received a request for the young men to clean up a yard and remove some trees as a "service opportunity".

We got there and the yard was a mess. We started talking to the people and it turns out they didn't even own the place but were renting from an Aunt or something. The owner wanted to get out of the rental/landlord business so she wanted to have the place fixed up so she could sell it for a better price.

I was so proud of the YM president when he said: "Tell you Aunt to hire professionals, this isn't the kind of service project we can take on." Too bad there aren't more like him in the church.

Ha! I love that response! That's what I'd like to say to people around here...

I know it well.

In my experience (EQP, bishop, etc.), the problem is, no one ever wants to say "Wait a minute."

There is seldom anyone in Ward Welfare Council, PEC, Ward Council/Correlation, presidency, or any other meeting willing to say anyone else's idea is bad, even when it is.

"I was visiting teaching, and they NEED a new coffee table." "What a nice missionary tool, let's do it!"

"Sister Hansen needs someone to watch her children while she takes oil painting classes." "Great idea!"

Here's another excessive request from a few weeks ago. Came home to find a message on our answering machine saying DH and son had been "assigned" to help with a service project on Saturday involving painting someone's entire house inside AND out, installing trim around all the doors and windows, and do some kind of yard project. The funny thing was that EQ pres. estimated the job should "only take a couple of hours." Yeah, right.

Clearly, this person has never done any construction.

A Mormon's idea of compassionate SERVICE is baking a cake in a million dollar house and walking it down the steet to give it to a family living in another million dollar house.

I just cringe and bite grooves in my tongue as my TBM wife rushes around, busy as a hamster on a hamster-wheel, fixing and delivering meals for women who have able-bodied husbands and family members that are just loitering around waiting to be fed. A time or two I've said something like, "aren't there plenty of truly needy people in town that could use your help?" but that just results in the stink-eye.

Mormons are great about giving meaningless service to one another (and taking advantage of each other's kindness), but they are not known for doing much for anyone else unless it's self-promoting.

I get really angry hearing these things. My son was in the highest level of the NICU for about a month. I was horribly sick from my unhealthy pregnancy/delivery and still hospitalized myself. My exhusband (who wasn't an ex then) was working 12 hour days in a slaughterhouse and then driving two hours away each day to visit me and my son in the hospital. He lost like 15 pounds (my ex is thin anyway) from literally not having the time to feed himself.

I mentioned to the RS president at the time that it would be nice if one of the ladies could make a casserole or lasagna to drop off at the house. Just so my ex could throw a piece in the microwave and eat it quickly on his way to work or the hospital. I mean one pan of casserole would have lasted him a week. It would have taken no time at all to do, especially since none of my peers in RS worked.

They didn't do jack. I fumed at the thought of how many dang dinners I had cooked for people, some people multiple times for no reason at all other than to be helpful. My ex was burning the candle at both ends with NOBODY to help him, and was making himself sick while his wife and son were already very ill.

That's when I realized that the only person in the RS who was doing these meals were ME. But yet the entire RS took credit for it and touted their "service" projects for the ward.

This just makes me wonder if people feel some sense of entitlement to these "services" in exchange for their tithing; like they feel they have paid so much in and this is the only way to get anything back out of it.

so this is the way it goes, people. The mother is going to be out of commission, so the husband relieves himself of the extra work by going to the bishop, who turns around and asks the Relief Society president, who assigned it to the appropriate sister. It comes from the priesthood to the mother's so-called "friends" who if the were close, would know if she needed any help, and who were the ones who the woman herself would ask if she felt comfortable asking.

To her horror, these women come over with attitude because they didn't want to help (or the would have offered long ago). So they complain, the kids tell them mother and she feels worse.

Men try to lighten the load ON THEMSELVES rather than chip in when they are really needed.

Anagrammy

Long ago I belonged to a stay-at-home LDS moms chat room. Man, those were some b*tchy women! Anyway, one day one of the ladies was terribly distressed because she was up in Oregon, her daughter was having surgery hundreds of miles away from any family, the week previously, the husband had decided to walk out on his wife (geez, couldn't he wait two weeks til after the surgery? What was his hurry) and the ward was no help at all. Literally - here was this poor young married girl who's husband had just deserted her and who needed surgery and not a single sister could bestir themselves to make dinner for her or even drive her to the hospital and take her home the next day. She was very near where I was living so I volunteered to at least drive her to the hospital and bring in some dinners. An uncle happened to be in the area on business so he brought her home and brought in some misc. groceries for her.

Weeks later, the RS president said "Oooo why didn't you tell us so we could help?" Except this girl and her mom from out of state had called a lot of women in the ward asking for help, only to get turned down. I knew what town I'd never be moving to!

What town? My daughter is thinking of moving to Oregon and she should know where to avoid....

:)

Anagrammy

Just saying...

;)

The divorced and widowed women in our stake were extremely generous. They would fix dinners, even sack lunches, and they would take turns cleaning house for the cute doctor stake president's counselor, when his wife died. He was very grateful, but he appreciated the neighbor's daughter more.

The mistake of doing any service, I think, is expecting something in return. Now I'm out of the cult, I enjoy doing things anonymously. Even so, it is better to feel that you are doing something that is actually NEEDED.

You not agreeing with these idiot requests has nothing to do with compassion. They are ridiculous. And I totally agree with you - self sufficiency. Help yourself first and when you've done all you can, then you ask for help. They don't seem to do that from the sounds of it.