Known And Near

September's Core Value is Service.

Whenever I hear that word, my mind goes far. I picture a stranger on the side of the road, a family across the world we've never met, a name on a list at Operation Conquer Hunger. I think unknown and far. And there is nothing wrong with that instinct; we should absolutely be looking outward. But I've come to believe the service that matters most is often the opposite of that. It's not unknown and far. It's known and near.

Known and near. Say that a few times. The people who know us best, who need us most, and who are closest to us physically and emotionally are usually standing inside the walls of our own home. A spouse. A child. A parent. A sibling. The people we'd never think to put on a list because they're just there. Always there. And because they're always there, we can convince ourselves their need isn't urgent. It is. It's just quiet.

The Person Over the Problem

I love this quote, often shared by President Thomas S. Monson and originally credited to Barbara Johnson: "Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." 

That hits me every time, because I know exactly which direction I default to. Business is full of problems to be solved. Inboxes, deadlines, a mission like Conquer Hunger that always has more need than we can meet. Problems are loud. Problems have deadlines. People, especially the ones known and near to us, rarely demand our attention the same way. They just wait. And love, if we're not careful, gets scheduled for whenever the problems finally run out. They never do.

So this month, I want to flip the order. Person first. Problem second. Every time.

The World Changes One Home at a Time

Here's a thought that's been sitting with me: if every single person simply took care of those known and near to them first, really took care of them, the entire world would change. Not eventually. Almost immediately. Most of the suffering we see at scale is really just millions of individual homes where someone known and near went unseen. Fix that one home at a time, starting with your own, and you've done something a government program never could.

And it costs nothing. That's the part I keep coming back to. Service, real service, doesn't require a budget. It requires attention. A phone put down. A question asked and actually listened to. Time. I'm convinced that service, more than money, more than achievement, more than anything else we chase, is the actual key to happiness. Not because it feels good, though it does, but because it pulls us out of ourselves and into the people we were made to love.

The Service No One Sees

Something I've noticed: the service inside a home is almost always quiet. It doesn't get posted. There's no caption for it. It's a wife who wakes up before everyone else and goes to bed after everyone else, so that the people she loves never have to think about whether their needs are met. It's a dad who fixes something small before anyone even notices it was broken. It's a teenager who does the dishes without being asked because they saw their mom was tired.

None of that gets applause. None of it needs to.

I think about MTN OPS, and honestly a lot of what we do publicly is loud on purpose. Operation Conquer Hunger is meant to be seen. We shout it from the rooftops because awareness drives action, and action feeds families. We may not reach every hungry person in the world, but we can make a real difference for some, and that's worth being loud about.

But I also see something else at MTN OPS constantly, something that never makes it onto a slide or a social post. I watch our team serve each other. Someone covering for another so a teammate can make their kid's game. Someone quietly checking in on a coworker going through something hard. No recognition, no audience, nothing on display. Just people known and near to each other, taking care of one another because it's right, not because anyone's watching.

There's an old story about a man walking a beach covered in stranded starfish, throwing them back into the sea one at a time. His wife, watching him do this over and over with no end in sight, asked what on earth he thought he was accomplishing when there were thousands more he'd never reach. He picked up another one, threw it into the water, and said, "It made a difference to that one." You've probably heard some version of this story before, sometimes it's a boy on a beach, sometimes an old man and a stranger, but the heart of it never changes. We don't have to fix everything for our effort to matter. We just have to matter to the one in front of us. And the ones most in front of us, known and near, are the ones inside our own homes.

My Wife, My Example

I have to talk about my wife, Jenna, here, because she is the clearest picture of this I know. I watch her serve our family every day, without recognition, often without anyone but me even noticing what she just did. I am afraid even I don’t notice all the good she does.  She anticipates needs before they're spoken. She carries weight nobody sees her carrying. There is no stage for what she does, no highlight reel, and she has never once asked for one. That kind of love, given fully and quietly to the people known and near to her, is exactly what I think we should all be striving for.

Scripture calls that charity, "the pure love of Christ." (Moroni 7:47) Not affection when it's convenient. Not love with conditions. The pure love of Christ, poured out on the people closest to us, day after ordinary day. "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." (Proverbs 31:28) I couldn't have said it better.

Known and Near, First

I love this one,  "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20). It's almost too direct. It's easy to say we love people in the abstract, people far away, people we'll never meet. It's harder, and far more telling, to love the person known and near enough to see us on our worst day.

King Benjamin taught it plainly too: "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." (Mosiah 2:17) That fellow being doesn't have to be a stranger for the service to count. In fact, Paul tells us where to start: "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith." (Galatians 6:10) Especially. Not exclusively, but especially. Home first, then let it overflow.

So here's my challenge for September, to you and to myself. Before we go looking far for someone unknown to serve, let's look near, at someone known, someone already standing in front of us. Let's put the person ahead of the problem. Let's serve quietly where no one's watching, and let it be enough that it mattered to that one.

God bless.

Keep Conquering.

Trevor Farnes
Founder | MTN OPS