I recently received a letter from my brother Jay R in which he reminisced about our years in Mexico:
“On a trip to Torreon, Mom, Dad, Dale and I stopped at the usual restaurant, “Los Globos,” to eat. I always ordered the enchiladas suizas. I happened to be sitting near the very large plate-glass window that looked out on the street. Just as my order arrived, so did two shoe shine boys arrive at the window. They were about my age, maybe ten or eleven years old. I remember how self-conscious and embarrassed I was to be eating this sumptuous meal in front of them, knowing that they must be very hungry and envious of the gringo who could afford such a meal. I couldn’t look them in the eye.
“Dad took note of them, too, and waved them in. When they got to our table, he had them shine all of our shoes. I was then even more embarrassed as it appeared that we were adding insult to injury. I continued to guiltily feast on my enchiladas, re-fried beans and rice.
“Dad paid the boys for our shoe shines and gave each a good tip. He then asked them to sit at the table next to ours and told the waitress to bring them menus. He instructed the boys to order anything they wanted and, after showing their amazement by asking if he were “bromeando” (joking) or being “chistoso” (funny), they ordered what they wanted and gobbled it down as though they hadn’t eaten for days—and perhaps they had not. I was proud of Dad that day, but was puzzled by a comment I heard him make to Mother: ‘I didn’t want to turn them into beggars.’
“That event has stuck in my mind all these years. Some time ago, I was called by the Church to serve as a Regional Welfare Specialist to train Church leaders in the proper use of offerings for the needy, Church Assistance and in the importance of Provident Living. I came to understand the wisdom in what Dad had said to Mother--and I finally understood what it meant.”
Daniel H. Wells said, “You may give a piece of bread to a hungry person, and when the cravings of hunger return someone else must administer to his wants again. To put the person in a position to earn his own subsistence is true charity; in this way you direct his feet in the path of true independence, he is then only dependent on his own exertions and on the blessings of his God.”
“If a man were poor or hungry,” said John Taylor, “some would say, let us pray for him. I would suggest a little different regimen for a person in this condition: rather take him a bag of flour and a little beef or pork, and a little sugar and butter. A few such comforts will do him more good than your prayers. And I would be ashamed to ask the Lord to do something that I would not do myself. Then go to work and help the poor yourselves first, and do all you can for them, and then call upon God to do the balance.”
Brigham Young said, “I will give you a piece of counsel. Do good to all. It is better to feed nine unworthy persons than to let one worthy person—the tenth, go hungry. Follow this rule and you will be apt to be found on the right side of doing good.”
“No pains must be spared,” said Heber J. Grant, “to wipe out all feelings of diffidence, embarrassment, or shame on the part of those receiving relief; the [congregation] must be one great family of equals. The spiritual welfare of those on relief must receive especial care and be earnestly and prayerfully fostered. A system which gives relief for work or service will go far to reaching these ends.”
“The idle person of the present,” said Harold B. Lee, “must be provided with the opportunity of rendering some service of which he is capable so that if and when he needs assistance it may be given out not as a dole to sustain him in idleness but as a partial compensation for the work he has done or the services he has rendered.”
In other words, let’s not turn our fellow men and women into beggars.
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