See Thou Tell No Man - Thomas S. Monson

See Thou Tell No Man - Thomas S. Monson 

3 stories on anonymous service from President Monson, also the story called "The Mansion" by Henry Van Dyke about John Weightman.    It is a favorite of mine.     Love this article!

1. On a winter’s morn, a father quietly awakened his two sons and whispered to them, “Boys, it snowed last night. Get dressed, and we’ll shovel the snow from our neighbors’ walks before daylight.” The party of three, dressed warmly and under cover of darkness, cleared the snow from the approaches to several homes. Father had given but one instruction to the boys: “Make no noise, and they will not know who helped them.” Again, the word anonymous.

2. At a nursing home, two young men prepared the sacrament. While doing so, an elderly patient in a wheelchair spoke aloud the words, “I’m cold.” Without a moment’s hesitation, one of the young men walked over to her, removed his own jacket, placed it about the patient’s shoulders, gave her a loving pat on the arm, and then returned to the sacrament table. The sacred emblems were then blessed and passed to the assembled patients.

   Following the meeting, I said to the young man, “What you did here today I shall long remember.”

   He replied, “I worried that without my jacket I would not be properly dressed to bless the sacrament.”

   I responded, “Never was one more properly dressed for such an occasion than were you.”

   I know not his name. He remains anonymous.

3. In Europe, at a time when there was still a curtain of iron and a wall called Berlin, I visited, with a handful of Latter-day Saints, a small cemetery. It was a dark night, and a cold rain had been falling throughout the entire day. We had come to visit the grave of a missionary who many years before had died while in the service of the Lord. A hushed silence shrouded the scene as we gathered about the grave. With a flashlight illuminating the headstone, I read the inscription:

Joseph A. Ott

Born: 12 December 1870—Virgin, Utah

Died: 10 January 1896—Dresden, Germany

Then the light revealed that this grave was unlike any other in the cemetery. The marble headstone had been polished, weeds such as those which covered other graves had been carefully removed, and in their place was an immaculately edged bit of lawn and some beautiful flowers that told of tender and loving care. I asked, “Who has made this grave so attractive?” My query was met by silence.

At last a twelve-year-old deacon acknowledged that he had wanted to render this unheralded kindness and, without prompting from parents or leaders, had done so. He said that he just wanted to do something for a missionary who had given his life while in the service of the Lord. I thanked him, and then I asked all there to safeguard his secret, that his gift might remain anonymous.