Our riding lawn mower broke recently.

Of course, because we don’t have a job right now, we can’t afford to get it fixed.  This is quite a bummer as we have 2.25 acres to mow, but thankfully we still have a little mower, so my husband goes out with our little push lawn mower last night and begins the long process of mowing our lawn.  The weather is raging hot so the next morning at 6:00 he gets up to start mowing, because the job is no where near done.   About 2 hours later, just as he is finishing up with about one third of the yard done, and the heat is getting ramped up, our neighbor comes up to him and says, “You should let me help you with that.”  (This is the neighbor that snow-blowed our driveway covered in 24 inches of snow last winter with his snow blower.  Memory tells me that our snow blower was broken then too.  After he did our driveway, and a couple of weeks after his act of kindness, his wife comes to the door to ask a favor of us because her husband is in the hospital after coming very close to having had a heart attack!!!!!  We were alarmed and of course, we were very concerned.  We willingly helped them out…)

So, today, when he offers to help my husband do the yard, he say something along these lines, no, we don’t want you to have another heart attack.  He says he is fine and makes a list of all the things he does to keep active, biking with his dog, tennis several times a week, para-sailing…(it’s exhausting to listen to, not to mention embarrassing, but he makes his point.)  So, my husband agrees, but tells him not to do the whole thing.  Between last night and this morning, Mike had done about .75 of an acre and we still had 1.50 of an acre left to go.

Mike had to go for job hunting, but before he left, we witness our neighbor heading straight into our yard armed and ready with a thermos of water, his lawn mower and a gas can.  I watch him like a hawk and after an hour I go out there to tell him to stop…but he tells me he’s fine and in truth, the temperature is still good. Thankfully, there is cloud cover and a breeze and I feel it’s okay not to act like a mother. (He is 60.) But I say a prayer and ask Father in Heaven to please extend the cloud cover so that he stays cool.

He does.

Finally, after 2.5 hours, our neighbor decides it is time to quit and seeing him head back to his house, I go outside to thank him.  Gratefully, he quit when the sun finally did come out and left some for my husband to finish.  This man has a heart of gold.

Who is my neighbor?  It is a man like Rod.  A funny guy always looking out for others…God bless him.

Who is my neighbor? It is anybody who I meet on the street and look past the outward appearance to see a need that may not be expressed, but may help lift and help brighten someone else’s day.

“The abundant life noted in the scriptures is the spiritual sum that is arrived at by the multiplying of our service to others and by investing our talents in service to God and to man.”  –Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Holier Pattern of Service