We start a new topic this week, and it's a doozy. We have a reader who wants to know how to deal with people who ask ward members for professional favors and even promise to pay for them — and then don't. We're going to expand that even farther, to pick up the whole gamut of people who take advantage of acts of service. This topic should be an eye-opener, and her letter will appear later in this column.

But first, we've had a couple of weeks of columns where people have suggested involving the whole family in acts of service — but we just received a letter with some great ideas on how to achieve that lofty goal. Here is what one reader has to say:

Our family has really struggled with finding time for service.  We have six young children (the oldest is 11), and my busy military husband is often gone for extended periods of time.  Also, I homeschool my four oldest children, so this cuts into my available time as well. 

However, I know how important service is — for myself, for others, and especially for my children.  I know that in order for them to gain a testimony, they have to be able to feel the spirit and the joy of serving others.  We have found that the easiest thing to do is INCLUDE our family in our service.  Here are some things we have done:

It is my opinion that if we spend all of our available free time as parents running our children to this sport or that music or dance class, we are teaching them to be selfish. We are telling them, albeit inadvertently, that life is all about me and what I want to do. 

How many of our children will grow up to be professional athletes, dancers, or musicians?  It is much more important for their spiritual well-being to learn to enjoy serving others. 

I am not implying in anyway that we should not give our children any of these extra things.  Our children have been able to participate in all of these classes and activities at various times over the plast few years.  But we do not do these things constantly.   

If we are too busy to give service, then we are probably too busy.

These ideas will probably not help the new Relief Society president mentioned in this article, however; perhaps as a Relief Society they could have an Enrichment night class focusing on family service ideas, a first Sunday of the month lesson on the importance of service, or SOMETHING to get the sisters fired up about service.  Don't forget to pray and find out what ideas the Spirit might have.  Good luck!

Rebecca in Colorado (soon to be Maryland!)

What a terrific letter, Rebecca! Every one of your suggestions for involving the family in service projects was a real winner. You've given ideas to a lot of parents today, and people all over the world will benefit from your counsel — not just the families giving service, but also the recipients of those acts of charity. Thanks so much for writing!

Now here's the promised letter that veers us from the topic of finding time for service to a much less happy topic — dealing with the black holes of charity:

I'm compassionate service leader in my ward, and my husband is the scoutmaster.  The problem we both face is that ward members are taking advantage of our help. I don't know when to decide it's okay to help, and when to feel good about saying no.

I was wondering if you could do an article on how to handle other ward members who ask for your help and expect you to help them for free.  My husband is out of a job right now, we are having our second baby soon, and recently a woman from the ward called up and asked for him to transfer everything from her super old computer to her new one she just bought.  She recognized he was out of work and said she would pay him at least a hundred dollars, so he spent at least six hours over at her house over a period of two days and she didn't pay him anything. 

She called yesterday asking him another question about computers and thanked him again (isn't thanks wonderful?) with no mention about money.  However, she did offer to give a us a few children's books that she gets for free.  Is that her payment? 

Also, my husband has been asked to do slide shows for other people in the ward for eagle projects, weddings, and so on. and he spends at least 10 hours/show making them perfect. We expected to be paid something because he was trying to do that as a side business and people knew it, but he didn't even get a thank you card from these people for all his work. 

Do these people have no common sense that a guy trying to finish school, raise a family, and work full time (or look for a job full time) might not be willing/happy to do this stuff for free? 

My husband and I are now role playing together to practice how he's going to respond when people ask him for help. "I don't do those anymore, but brother such and such does for work, so you might want to ask him."  But really, aside from going up to these people and using passive aggressive phrases to get some money ("Thanks for employing my husband the other week for your computer; every little bit of money counts when you're out of a job"), is there anything else we can do to safeguard ourselves from other ward members and at times ensure payment? 

Sleep-Starved in Seattle

Thanks for writing, Sleepy! You've hit upon a subject that's a sore topic for many people.

The immediate answer to the question of what to say to the woman who promised to pay you the hundred dollars is to call her and sweetly ask when she's going to have the hundred dollars she offered to pay you, “because we're low on grocery money and it could really come in handy.” But these things are easier thought about than done.

I'm sure we have readers out there who have experience in this area, and who can tell you exactly how to handle this situation ahead of time so you can avoid hard feelings in the future.

I want to expand this topic, however. As long as we're going to discuss the abuse of service, I'd like to also ask what to do about people who demand so many acts of service that there's no time left to serve anyone else. I have received many complaints on this subject, and we might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Readers, if you have any ideas of how to keep from being taken advantage of people as you give service, please send your ideas to circleofsisters@meridianmagazine.com . Put something in the subject line that will let me know your letter isn't spam.  And when you write, be sure to include your full name, city and state or province. (If you'd rather be semi-anonymous, sign your name as “A Reader from Michigan” or “Sandy from Timbuktu.” The important thing is that we hear from you.)

Until next week — Kathy

If we are too busy to give service, then we are probably too busy.

Rebecca in Colorado (soon to be Maryland!)