{"chapter_no":"16","chapter_title":"A Silvery Tray","book_id":"3","book_name":"Springville","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"461","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":4,"page_content":"

 <\/p>

Chapter 16<\/p>

A Silvery Tray<\/h1><\/p>

 <\/p>

In likeness of the ordinance of washing of feet, Mark serves his wife breakfast in bed with a silver
tray—Helping stake members with their temporal needs.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

Awaking early the next morning, Mark arose from bed and made his way to the kitchen.
Quietly, he prepared toast, yogurt, eggs––over easy, the way Kathleen likes them––and bacon,
then poured a cup of orange juice and a glass of milk. From the trunk of the car in the garage, he
brought in a box containing a new silver serving tray that he had purchased the night before from
a local department store. Pulling the tray out of the box onto the counter, he set out the newly
prepared breakfast upon it and carried it into the bedroom. Setting the tray down on the floor, he
turned off the alarm clock timer and then kneeled down next to Kathleen as she slept. He took
her by the hand and was there as she awoke. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Surprised at first, Kathleen stirred for a moment, then smiled as she saw Mark so close
beside her. Light from the early sunrise filtered through the window, filling the room. Her first
thought was, Wh<\/i>at<\/i> a <\/i>wonderful day<\/i> this is!<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

“Good morning!” said Mark, completely satisfied with his sneak attack. “Why are you
still lying in bed?\"<\/p>

 <\/p>

Taking a few moments to gather herself, Kathleen soon realized what was going on. Her
smile grew wide as she pulled him closer and gave him a strong embrace. Ordinarily, she might
have perhaps cried at a beautiful moment such as this, but it was very early in the morning and
she was still waking up. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“I wanted to let you know how much I love and appreciate you!\" said Mark. \"I even
made a little breakfast for you this morning.” <\/p>

 <\/p>

Mark moved out of the way so she could see the breakfast tray. He got to his feet, lifted
the tray off the ground with both hands, and served her. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“This tray was a little expensive,” said Mark, “but I wanted to make this day a special
occasion that we will always remember.<\/p>

 <\/p>

\"I’ve thought a lot since yesterday. If I want to bring about a transformation in the stake
and improve the lives of the members, then I need to start first with a transformation in my own <\/p>

life. I need to become better in everything that I do every day––as a husband, as a father, and as a
priesthood leader. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“I’ll use this tray on occasion to make breakfast in bed for you. It’s a little like the
ordinance of washing of feet, something a husband can do for his wife in remembrance of the
covenant of temple marriage. I’m going to suggest my counselors, the high council, and maybe
even all men in the stake do this for their wives once a month and, if feasible, also acquire a
silver tray to be used solely for this purpose. It will set a nice tone.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

The reader may be already acquainted with the story of the silver candlesticks from Les
Miserables<\/i>. There is powerful imagery of the gospel found within that story. In the story here,
silver is being presented as an emblem of priesthood service in the home. Mark, thereafter, kept
the new tray in a prominent position in the front room, a reminder for him to always honor and
love his wife and to establish peace and order in the home first before aspiring to do big things in
the world elsewhere. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Kathleen, her eyes still groggy, propped herself up in bed to receive the tray on her lap.
No special prayer was needed to administer this new ordinance––other than the blessing on the
food––only sincerity and gratitude for one’s spouse. She started first with the eggs, then took a
sip of orange juice and spread strawberry jam on the first piece of toast. <\/p>

 <\/p>

Mark had earlier begun his day filled with energy, as though he had been shot out of a
gun by the Spirit. He was ready to transition to the work of the Lord full time, and as his main
profession in life. What he was doing here in the home, serving breakfast to his wife very early
in the morning, was just exactly that––the work of the Lord, the work of the Church, and, indeed,
the work of Zion<\/span>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“Kathleen, I’m going to take a shower now, but how about we go to the temple this
morning? We might start going to the temple a couple times a week... say around 8:30 on
Tuesdays and Thursday mornings. How does that sound?”<\/p>

 <\/p>

“I'm fine with that,” said Kathleen. “I’ll get cleaned up right after you.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

“Also,” said Mark, moving towards her and sitting down on the edge of the bed, “I want
to totally immerse myself in the routine priesthood assignments going on every day in the wards;
quorum leaders can decide which ones they want me to help on. I'll have plenty of free time now,
so I want to make myself available to them as a general resource, which should immediately
increase the overall manpower strength in the stake every day. Just this step alone, increasing the
available manpower, is a big step forward. As I get more involved with them, I can then better
supervise their efforts in the performance of their regular priesthood duties... particularly those
kinds of things that are not getting done right now.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Kathleen. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“Plus,” said Mark, “another important thing is the temporal needs of the members. This
has to be considered a priority if we want to be successful. You and I went through this ourselves <\/p>

in just the past few months. My part-time job situation and our concerns about finances made it
harder for us to relax and concentrate on spiritual things. This will be true for everyone. So we’ll
need to seek help from the Lord in this—to improve our ability to help folks in the stake with
their immediate, temporal needs first. <\/p>

 <\/p>

“Honestly, it’s hard for anyone to pursue higher aspirations in life when they are
constantly worried about their job situation, debts, medical problems, family arguments,
pressures at school, or finding the right eternal companion. These things weigh heavily on their
minds all day long. That will often be what they pray about fervently and what they need help
from the Lord and us to solve; and this help coming from our side needs to be provided to each
person individually, not just generalized counsel coming from the pulpit on Sundays. We can
tackle these issues through good problem-solving techniques, existing Church programs, help
from other members––and even nonmembers where possible––inspiration, and building
sufficient faith among us such that we can bring about mini-miracles in people’s lives. We want
to bring relief to them from their trials, as well as give them hope for the future and a basic level
of prosperity. They'll need this kind of foundation in their lives before they'll be more at ease to
focus on the longer-term goals of the gospel<\/span>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“I intend to start slowly in this. I'll try to help bishoprics, quorum leaders, and Relief
Society presidencies learn how to get better at doing the basics. It’s true that, in all of our wards,
people serve honorably and already accomplish great things every day. But as a stake, we
consistently fall short in almost every category of gospel execution I can think of. We need to fix
the obvious things first and then build in redundancy for all of the assignments—setting up a
system where we over-configure manpower to have an extra buffer to easily handle the routine
stuff. Rightsizing manpower for Church assignments just to squeeze by is an unsatisfactory
management strategy for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many simple tasks in the
Church for which it is already possible for us to be perfect. In those areas, we're not dealing with
spiritual problems, just process or management problems. I'll be supervising the stake closely
every day to make sure these things happen.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“This is the first phase—getting the obvious things done every day and better managed. It
will probably take the next twelve to eighteen months to accomplish this and get things under
control. We have to learn first how to crawl and master the basics––to be perfect in the little
things. Once that's done, we can set our sights higher. Zion is not one large step, but many small
steps.”<\/p>

 <\/p>

Referring to this from an earlier chapter:<\/p>

 <\/p>

He<\/i>[Mark<\/i>] <\/i>supervised every detail of the plant operations on the floor<\/i>––<\/i>the machines, the
operators, the flow of labor steps, the supervisors, the materials, and the systems. Everything in
the plant was under his careful watch. He was on the lookout always for the big problems and
the obvious things; and then, once identified, he would follow through to make sure they were
fixed, and that they stayed fixed, afterwar<\/i>d<\/i> checking that the supervisor had updated the process
documentation. The greater improvements in the plant, however, came through his identification
and correction of the hundreds of very small and subtle problems. Each small item by itself was
not significant, but line upon line, and day after day, there was a cumulative effect—a tightening <\/i><\/p>

up of many small individual processes was occurring. These improvements led to improvements
of the larger processes of the plant, as well as those at the top level of the business.<\/i><\/p>

 <\/p>

Kathleen listened while enjoying the last of her orange juice.<\/p>

 <\/p>

“Kathy,” said Mark, his voice trailing off as he left to go shower, “just leave the dishes in
the sink when you're through and I’ll wash them before we go. I had some cereal for breakfast
already. As you can tell, I’m pretty motivated and have a lot of energy today!\"<\/p>

 <\/p>

Soaping up in the shower afterward, Mark was beaming––he was ready to accomplish big
things. The Lord had already shown to him how quickly things can develop towards his goals. It
seemed to him that his testimony had doubled or tripled in strength since yesterday's meeting
with Thomas and Robert. He loved Kathleen, he loved the Lord, he loved the Church, he loved
his new consulting opportunity at the plant. He loved everything and everyone<\/span>.<\/p>"}