My Brainstorm of Putting the Priesthood to Work

As I have been thinking about my recent move and the help that I have needed, I think about others and the help that they may need in their daily lives. I often listen to general conference talks in my car as I go about my day-to-day activities. These are a couple of things that have stuck out to me:

"During the Great Depression, Harold B. Lee, serving then as a stake president, was asked by the Brethren to find an answer to the oppressive poverty, sorrow, and hunger that were so widespread across the world at that time. He struggled to find a solution and took the matter to the Lord and asked, “What kind of an organization will we have … to do this?”

"And “it was as though the Lord had said [to him]: ‘Look, son. You don’t need any other organization. I have given you the greatest organization there is on the face of the earth. Nothing is greater than the priesthood organization. All in the world you need to do is to put the priesthood to work. That’s all.’”"
(Providing in the Lord’s Way, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Oct 2011 Priesthood Session)

"A second gospel principle that has been a guide to me in welfare work is the power and blessing of unity. When we join hands to serve people in need, the Lord unites our hearts. President J. Reuben Clark Jr. put it this way: “That giving has … brought … a feeling of common brotherhood as men of all training and occupation have worked side by side in a Welfare garden or other project.”4

"That increased feeling of brotherhood is true for the receiver as well as the giver. To this day, a man with whom I shoveled mud side by side in his flooded Rexburg home feels a bond with me. And he feels greater personal dignity for having done all he could for himself and for his family. If we had worked alone, both of us would have lost a spiritual blessing."
(Opportunities to Do Good, Henry B. Eyring, Apr 2011 Saturday Morning Session)

If we feel a greater personal dignity for doing all we can for our families and we get spiritual blessings working together, it seems to me that we as priesthood holders should work together much more frequently. In my mind I picture a group of two or three elders getting together (by assignment or by choise) either once a week or several times a month and working together in each-others homes. It could even be for simple chores.

For example: I picture three elders getting together at the first elder's house for an hour one Saturday and doing simple back yard chores like mowing the lawn, trimming trees and otherwise beautifying the lawn. Then going to the second elder's house and cleaning up the basement for an hour. Then going to the third elder's house and replacing a leaky pipe together for an hour. All of this could be done before noon and all three elders feel a greater brotherhood and unity as well as dignity for accomplishing more than they would have alone.

Another example may include larger projects where they spend three hours at one elder's house one Saturday and then rotate each Saturday. It could even include lessons - one elder may know how to work on cars. Instead of asking that elder to come and fix it he would teach the other two as he does it. That would apply to the leaky pipe example - if only one elder knows how to do it he would show the other two how as he does it. Lessons of finances, gardening, and food storage could be taught; the list is endless. The value of homes go up, the general knowledge of skills in the quorum goes up, and everyone is edified.

If this were by assignment then match skills with needs. If needs are not known in that great detail then set up the groups for basic chores and then as they work together and basic chores get done together, other needs will appear and become obvious to the others in the group. Skills will be able to be determined and known by the others in the quorum. It will become apparent that some people will have more needs than others. District or even quorum projects could then be created that would never have been known if it didn't first start with simple Saturday chores.