Serving from the Heart - The Beginning

From February 2005 through August of 2006, I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as a missionary for my church.  For 18 months, I wore a name tag with two very important names right next to each other, my name and the name of Jesus Christ.

On my mission, I learned that love is about service.  When you love, you want to serve people and you do.  We helped people move, declutter, clean up their house after a tragic fire, quit smoking, host a baby shower, decorate a Relief Society room, make drapes, and much much more.  Those were the best times.  There is something enlivening about rolling up your sleeves and going to work.

Love is work.  And it is the best kind of work.  As a missionary, I learned that one of the most important people to serve was my companion.  I have a binder from my mission and in it is a list I made entitled Things Sister Villela Wants.

They were small things, some things we could do together like memorizing scriptures, and some things she needed time to do, like take a short nap in the afternoon or work on her mission farewell paper.  I had fun making the list and checking things off as I did them,  Sister Villella was easy to love.