My talk

I started out by reading the parable of the Good Samaritan. {Our subject was on being a good neighbor}Times change and circumstance vary, but Jesus' teaching to the lawyer applies to you and me just as surely as though we heard His voice speaking directly to us. The Savior is our example. His entire ministry exemplified pure love of neighbor. [Monson]
But what about us in our time? How do we love our neighbor?
As Steve and I left Provo, and it's plethora of like minded young marrieds, and moved to our first apartment in Beaverton, Oregon, we were excited for life's new adventures. We spent the day moving our few possessions into our apartment, and then I began fixing our evening meal. I discovered that the disposal didn't work, so I called the manager, and he came right over. Soon he was banging around on the pipes under the sink. Just then the doorbell rang. I opened the door in anticipation of a friendly neighbor welcoming us to Oregon and our new home. Instead I saw a wizened old man with scraggly hair and a three days growth of stubble, standing there in his thin and faded pajama bottoms, with a steel gaff hook in his hands, ready to strike. My smile faded and I took a step back. He hollered about all the noise we were making. The manager quickly calmed him down and sent him back across the hall. He was my new neighbor! I was not brave enough to ever knock on his door, but I did leave him a fresh loaf of bread or a plate of cookies with a cheery note attached on his doorstep on my baking day. It took about a year, but one day he invited us over to show us the genealogy work he was doing, and a beautiful rug that he was hooking and had about half complete. We told him about the church and the genealogy resources available there. We admired the rug and his handiwork. He taught Steve and I how to do it, and then insisted that we take it home with us and complete and use it. Steve and I worked on that rug one row a day for a year, and it was finally complete. It is still in use at my mother's home, looking as beautiful as the day it was finished, and a tribute to a friendship that developed from someone I would never have chosen for a neighbor.
Most of us profess to love God. We are all fairly in tune with the idea that we need to have faith, repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. Most of us have done that. The challenge then is to forget ourselves and love our neighbors. Our neighbors include those we live with in our own homes, those that live next door, and any other person that crosses our path as we journey through life. Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed with where to begin.
First, we need to start at home. Steve is going to cover this.
Second, we need to reach out to those who live near. Be a courteous driver, a kind boss or coworker, a friendly patron as you shop, a good sport and team member. Use politeness on the phone and in person.
Some people are easy to love, like our across the street neighbor in Oregon. She was a sweet grandma that lived alone. Our family loved her and served her. For the five years we lived across from her, my children either took her a plate of dinner, or she came to our home to eat. My son mowed her lawn, even doing fun things like mowing a jack-o-lantern pattern into her grass to make life fun for her. My daughters loved to help her clean. She loved us, and we loved her.
However, some are not so easy, like our two next door neighbors at the same house. The one on the right was just an angry abusive man. He was vindictive and unkind. He even got angry when our tree dropped any leaves in his yard...and would get out his leaf blower and blow the leaves back where they belonged! Bread and cookies would calm him down for a little while. If a ball happened to venture over the fence, he would shred it and send it back over with a nasty note attached. Once he shot at our children with a BB gun when they were in the backyard playing. I was worried 'today a BB gun, tomorrow a shotgun', so we asked the police to come to our home to ask his opinion as to our options. He said, "Let me go talk to him." He came back and said, "Put up a tall fence, he is one mean man." We did put up a 10 foot fence, but we also always treated him with kindness, saying a friendly hello when he was out working in the yard, and shared treats his way. Eventually he invited us in to see his birds, showed us his beautiful back yard, and we could visit in a somewhat neighborly fashion. Sometimes fences make good neighbors.
An alcoholic man and his elderly mother lived on our other side. He was a terrible alcoholic, with all the bizarre behaviors that go with that condition. Still, we were friendly. He would come over to borrow things or visit for a while. I would go to his home to visit his mother. We were the only people in the neighborhood that ever spoke to him, and I don't think anyone else even knew his mother lived there. One evening his mother began choking. He ran to us for help, but it was too late, and she passed away. He didn't know what to do. He was alone, unemployed, no friends, no family. With the help of our bishop, we prepared and held a funeral for his mother at our ward building. There were four of us in attendance. Sometimes a neighbor can't reciprocate a kindness, but still their burdens can be made lighter.
Some neighbors become easy. Shortly after moving into our neighborhood, the Relief Society President called me and said, "You have an inaccessible family in your neighborhood, who have asked for no contact from the church." I told her that no one in our neighborhood was inaccessible to me, so I went and knocked on her door. Come to find our we both had two year olds. She was expecting again and terribly ill. I said, "Wow, it seems to me like you could use some visiting teachers--they could help babysit, bring in meals, clean your house, really help you out. In her desperate state, she agreed. As soon as her baby was born, the entire family came back to church in full fellowship. That two year old is now a Junior at BYU.
We need to reach out to the world. Maybe I can't go to Afghanistan to help in an orphanage, but I can make a doll, or some colorful blocks and donate them to the Humanitarian Service Center. Maybe I can't accompany my brother in law as he travels to Peru to do dental work, but I can make newborn kits and hygiene kits to send with him.
For two years in Oregon, I invited the eight- seven and eight year old girls that lived in our neighborhood and formed what I called "The Kindness Club". I made them vests, and they earned badges by doing kind deeds in their homes, school and community. On club days they were supposed to wear their vests to school. On the back, the vests said, "Kindness beings with me." I did this as a reminder to all who saw the girls. Those girls have now all grown and live throughout the world. Hopefully they are still spreading kindness.
Remember that not every person that crosses your path will be kind, nor even seem worthy of love, but no matter how hardened by sin and poor choices, they are still sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and He loves us all.
Maybe we in this ward can join together in our own Kindness Club and spread God's love to the neighbors who share our world.
Amen!