by Ken Jarvis, Area Media Specialist
For quite some time the city of San Antonio has been involved with helping immigrants. Since last fall most of the attention has been to help Afghan refugees. Before that, it was the influx of young boys from Central and South America. The truth is for many years San Antonio has been receiving refugees from around the world. A number of civic, religious and government organizations have united to aid as of as many of these refugees as possible.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has greatly increased its involvement in these activities. The need to support worthy community activities was emphasized in the 1990 General Conference by Elder Glenn L. Pace, then Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric. He spoke of the need to, “…reach out beyond the walls of our own church.” He chided members of the Church a little by saying, “We cannot become the salt of the earth if we stay in one lump in the cultural halls of our beautiful meetinghouses.”
So how do we find ways to reach out to others? One excellent way is to use the Just Serve website (https://www.justserve.org/). According to Becky Brusso, JustServe Specialist for the San Antonio Area, “JustServe is largely not service for the Church it is service for the community. In the San Antonio Area every stake has a JustServe Specialist and hopefully soon every ward will have one too.” Brusso added that all of these callings are really community based. “It’s about helping organizations in your community to post their projects and their need for volunteers and donations on the JustServe website.”
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