79. 'Light the World' Through Simple Acts of Kindness and Service

It's the Christmas season and many of us are busy with to do lists and hoping to make this time a fun and magical one for our families and those around us. But today I am going to be sharing simple ideas on how you can 'Light the World' with simple acts of kindness and service.

This isn't meant to be another burden or thing to add to your to do list. This is meant to be a resource and a source of inspiration and joy as we all do our best to lift those around us this Christmas season.

Links mentioned in the show:
Light the World Website

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Transcript

Melissa: It's the Christmas season and many of us are busy with to do lists and hoping to make this time a fun and magical one for our families and those around us.

But today I am going to be sharing simple ideas on how you can light the world with simple acts of kindness and service. This isn't meant to be another burden or thing to add to your to do list.

This is meant to be a resource and a source of inspiration and joy as we all do our best to lift those around us this Christmas season.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper.

Thank you so much for being here.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast and also Merry Christmas.

This is going to be an episode focused on the simple ways that we can serve and reach out to others this Christmas season and I am excited to share some simple ideas.

A lot of the ideas I'm going to share today come from an initiative called Light the World. It's an initiative sponsored by my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

And of course, because we believe this time at Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of the Savior, the idea behind doing these acts of service is to reflect his love and light.

But I love this initiative because really it's universal. Anyone? I think most people agree that especially at this time of year, we all feel a desire to serve, to reach out, to help others, especially maybe those who we see are struggling or could use some extra help and love.

And so I think anyone, no matter your religious background, could benefit from some of the ideas that are shared. And I'm going to share with this initiative of Light the World.

So I will leave a link in the show notes to the website for Light the World.

And basically this year the theme with Light the World is be someone's angel. So it's the idea that all of us can be an angel and bring that love and relief to somebody else.

And I love it because on their website and in some of their social media, the church has shared videos from others sharing people who have been an angel to them.

And I love hearing those ideas. But Light the World basically is a resource. It's a resource to teach you how to do simple service and to reach out to others.

And I love using it as a resource. I want to be real for just a minute and share that A few years ago when, well, it's been several years now, when I had young children and it was A time that I was struggling with my health in many ways, struggling with my mental health.

And Christmas time could just feel overwhelming at times. It just felt like all I could do to get up each day and to take care of my family and my basic needs as well.

And so I remember when I first heard about this initiative. I remember when they rolled it out, I am going to be real. I was just like, what?

One more thing that I have to try and incorporate with my family. And it just. I was like, I can't do it. I can't do one more thing.

And so I just want to add, if anyone is in a season right now where you're walking each day, taking it one day at a time, I want to remind you that service to your family is important.

Service or whatever you might be walking right now, it's okay to stop and to need to take care of those things that are on your plate right now. And really, this is meant to be a resource, just as my podcast is meant to be a resource.

I said that on the podcast many times. It's. It is never my goal to make someone feel guilt. It's actually just the opposite. I want to teach people how to feel joy in service.

And so this is a resource. We are all going to feel inspired in different ways on any given time, and especially during the Christmas season on how to serve. We're all going to feel different ways on how we should do that.

We're all going to have different gifts or different talents that we can share. We're all going to have different priorities or causes that are important to us. And that's completely okay.

So use Light the World as a resource for you and your family in some of the thoughts and inspiration that maybe you've already felt and already wanted to do. So I'm just going to share some of the things that are available with this that you might not be aware of.

And it's kind of fun, especially if you have kids at home or grandkids. These are some fun things that you can do to help incorporate them into this. So if you go to the website, which again, I will leave a link to in the show notes, I love that.

One of the first things on the website, they have this kindness randomizer. And so you press a little button that says generate ideas and it flips, there's three categories. So it says do what for whom and when.

So you press the button and it will give you a little randomization of a kindness act that you can do. So I'm going to give you some examples. I'm going to press it right now as I'm recording this.

So I pressed it and it says the. Do what? Says pick up trash for the. For whom? Says a teenager.

And when is right after you wake up next. I love that. Pick up trash for a teenager right after you wake up. I could definitely do that in my household.

That's a good one. I'm going to press it again now. It says do what? Send a card to for whom? Your significant other. When? First thing in the morning. I love that.

Send a card to your significant other first thing in the morning. I'm going to do one more.

Says do what? Go caroling to. Ooh, that one's a little bigger. For whom? Someone who makes you happy. When? Next time you go to the store. So go caroling next time you visit the store for someone who makes you happy.

So that's what it does. It just generates these random ideas. I could see especially my 8 year old loving to do this. So if you have young kids at home, they might love pressing this little button and writing down different ideas of little acts of kindness that they can do.

That one's a lot of fun. Something else that they have on the website is you can download 50 Ways to Let your light shine. So this is a PDF or a digital document you can download and you can print it off.

So this would be fun to put around your home or even at work, around the office, or in any different places as little reminders of random acts of kindness you can do.

So it's just a list of 50 ideas again. And they're simple. One says just smile at someone, Laugh with a friend.

Go caroling with a group.

Offer to teach someone a new skill. Call someone you miss. Learn to say Merry Christmas in a new language. Those are just some of the ideas.

They're not very complicated. And again, they're just these great ideas to help us come up with ways we can share our kindness. And I love both of these because I have said on this podcast many times, I think most of us call me Pollyanna, but most of us have a desire to do good and to help others and to reach out and to make a difference.

I think most people have that desire, but we don't always know how to put that into action. Or sometimes life truly can feel busy and overwhelming, especially this time of year, and we can't always see the simple ways that we can just make it a part of our everyday life.

And so I love both of these ideas because they're just kind of generating those ideas, giving you thoughts, things, little things that you can do to make service and giving back a regular part of your life and a joyous part of your life.

That's the whole purpose of this, is doing good, serving others, being kind to others just adds a whole level of joy to our lives that really we can't get any other way.

And that doesn't mean that we walk around smiling and chipper all the time, but it just, it adds a richness and abundance to our lives when we learn how to do these simple acts of kindness, this simple service with the lives that we are already leading.

So I love both of these. They give you those ideas.

Some other things that they have on that site is you can text, you can sign up to receive texts so that you will get again, inspiration and resources for how to serve and reach out to other people.

And sometimes they might send you little messages or that type of thing. They also will send you texts to learn more about angels in the Bible. They'll send you links to uplifting Christmas videos.

And these texts come twice a week during the month of December. So just for this month, you're not, you're not signing up for spam. They're not going to spam you.

But I love this idea. So on that website, it tells you that if you're in the US you text the word light to 71234 to receive those texts. If you're in any other country, it has a spot where you can sign up for WhatsApp.

So if you have the WhatsApp, you can sign up for it and receive those messages through there. And this one I love for teenagers. I love the idea of someone else besides me inviting my teenagers, my older kids, to have ideas for giving service, for reaching out.

And so I love the idea of you signing up for this text as a family and then being able to talk about some of the things that you receive or the invitations and reminders that you get.

So that can be a great one to do as a family or on your own as well, or with co workers or a group of friends can be a great idea.

And if you're not into receiving texts, if that's not your jam, they also have on that website a place to sign up for Light the World emails. So again, you get ideas and inspiration for how you can be someone's angel this Christmas season in your email inbox.

And again, all of these are for the month of December. So they just send you a couple things or a few things throughout the month. And you're not signing up for spam thing that's going to attack your email or your phone.

But I love both of those ideas as well. So those are some great ways that you can light the world, that you can get ideas for doing good, for sharing your light, for spreading kindness this Christmas season.

And one more thing that I want to mention that goes along with this Light the World initiative are the giving machines.

So these giving machines are in cities all over the world and again on that website they list them. You can go and find where the giving machines are at. I believe there's over a hundred of them this year.

So there's a lot of them. They're all over the world.

And at these giving machines, they're kind of like a non profit vending machine, which I love because that's what we do here on this podcast. We feature these non profits and love to help them get the assistance for the good things that they're doing.

And so what's great about these is you can go to a giving machine and they have different charities, different nonprofits that you can choose from. And it will tell you on a little card the nonprofit and what you're buying, maybe it's a nonprofit that helps with hunger.

And so it will tell you you're maybe buying 10 meals or I've noticed on a lot of the social media they've done that. One of the nonprofits that I featured just about a year ago, Days for Girls, is one of the nonprofits in the giving machines this year.

So they have a card in there and you can help with the Days for Girls initiative. Help girls have the things that they need for their periods all over the world.

And so what's great about these giving machines is they do have global nonprofits in almost every giving machine. But then also each giving machine has local nonprofits to that local area where the giving machine is at.

So I'm pretty sure for like the one for me that's here in Orem, Utah, in Utah county, where I live, there's one for United Way, Utah county and other nonprofits.

So the giving machines, if you want to give back, if you want to donate to nonprofit, they can be such a fun, easy way to do it. And again, this is a great one to do with your kids or your grandkids because they can see physically and be part of that experience.

So they can watch the little card that you select in the giving machine. It kind of comes forward and drops down just like you would see in a vending machine with product So a little kid can pick something and they can watch that and it just adds a little more of that tangible to it.

Because I know sometimes when we're talking about giving back or donating with kids, it's kind of hard. They don't always get to see that tangible reward. So this kind of makes it a tangible experience for them as well and can be a great way to teach your children about giving back and donating to important causes in your community.

So that is the Light the World initiative in a nutshell.

And so many good things that you can partake and be a part of. And I will leave a link to that website. All of these are such good things.

And again, I love this as a resource and the reminder that service giving back does not need to be a huge burdensome thing. It can be a simple thing that we can incorporate in so many ways that can truly bring joy to those around us and to our own lives and families as well.

I truly believe that service is one of the best ways that we can spread that feeling of peace and love within our own homes and within the world at large.

So thank you so much for being here on the podcast today. And just to give you a heads up, next week we will highlight one more nonprofit. Then we'll be taking a break for a couple of weeks.

And then I have several nonprofits already lined up that I've interviewed. I am so excited to be sharing with you in January. So please come back. Listen to those Sign up for Social media so you can see when we drop a new episode.

My social media is Do Something oosomethingmore podcast on Instagram or you can search for the Do Something More podcast on Facebook. I leave links to all of those in the show notes.

And also please, if you want to show the podcast some love, share this episode with a friend or leave us a review or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

And of course, as always, I hope this week you can find a way to do something more and maybe light the world as well to help lift, inspire or make a difference.