During one of Mitt Romney’s political campaigns, he was sent inside someone’s garage to stay out of the heat while photographers set up a photo shoot. When they went to get him, he was cleaning out the garage for the owner.

Of course, for a Mormon, that kind of behavior isn’t really unusual. Sure, Mormon teens like attention as much as anyone and there are days they might choose to be out with the reporters or doing a little flirting. But they’ve also been taught from an early age to look for ways to help others.

One of the ways Mormon teens learn how to help others is by serving in church leadership positions. The teens run their own youth program. They have adult leaders, but the leaders provide what is called shadow leadership. That means that instead of running everything, they help the teens learn to do it themselves. If a teen class presidency started to plan an activity that was against the rules, for instance, the leader might say, “Have you checked the rule book to see if that is allowed?” That way, the teens are reminded to become familiar with the rules. The leader could just say, “You can’t do that. It’s against the rules.” But if they did, the teens would never learn to look up the rules themselves. If the teens are running an activity and don’t notice one girl is sitting off by herself without friends, the leaders might ask the teens if they’ve looked around to see if everyone is having fun. This will remind them that part of being in charge is noticing what the others around you are doing and then solving any problems you see. When the teens are having a problem, the leaders will ask questions rather than offering solutions so they will learn how to solve their own problems.

This means that the teens learn to pay attention to what needs to be done and then to do it, rather than to think that “someone” ought to fix it. Their parents do the same thing. They read the Bible and the Book of Mormon and see how Jesus served others all the time, even when no one asked for help. He noticed the person who was sick, the person too scared to come up and talk to Him, and the person who was lonely. He stepped in and did everything He could for them.

One day I was teaching a class of preschoolers. We were in a big room with the children and adults from all the classes for a little while. One of my little students looked behind him and noticed an adult standing in the back of the room. He got up, found a chair, and took it to her. It was clear to me his parents had taught him to notice when people need help and to not wait for an invitation to get involved.

Even if no one has taught you to do that, you can teach yourself. Tomorrow, when you’re at school or work or even at home, look around. Who could use a hand right now? Does your mom look like she needs a glass of lemonade? Do the dishes need doing? Is someone sitting alone at lunch? Does anyone look sad? What can you do to step in and help out? How many chances can you find in a single day to make a difference, even a small one, in the lives of the people around you?

The boys meet in quorums, or groups, on Sundays and usually one weekday as well, based on the level of priesthood they hold. Each quorum has a president, two counselors (similar to vice-presidents) and a secretary. All these positions are held by the boys themselves. Adult leaders are assigned to teach and supervise the groups, but the boys lead themselves under the supervision of the adults.

Spencer understood that being the president meant he was to watch over all the other boys in his quorum and to make sure they were taken care of. While it might be easy and fun to look after your closest friends, a deacon quorum president is expected to become friends with all the boys in order to know what they most need.

In Spencer’s quorum was a boy named Dayton. Dayton has cerebral palsy. He can’t walk and can’t communicate except to blink for yes and not blink for no. A lot of teenagers would find it too hard to become friends with someone who could not communicate, but not Spencer. The two boys became good friends.

One day Spencer, who enjoys doing triathlons, had an idea. He always thought Dayton should get to do all the things other kids his age got to do, and so, he decided Dayton needed to race in a triathlon. He asked Dayton if he’d like to do that and Dayton blinked to show he would.

How do you do a triathlon when you can’t walk or even sit up alone? Well, you need a friend to help out. Spencer had some help in getting the supplies he needed to be the person who helped. First, they created a special bicycle with a cart attached. Spencer would ride the bike and Dayton would be right behind in the cart. That would take care of the bicycle portion of the triathlon. There was also a swimming portion so Spencer had to swim pulling an inflatable boat holding Dayton. When he did the running portion, he pushed Dayton’s wheelchair.

As you can imagine, this was very hard work. Triathlons are difficult when you race them alone, but to push and pull another person as you go makes it exceptionally hard. Spencer noticed he had to work so much harder and near the end, he felt he had nothing left with which to finish the race. But from somewhere deep inside himself, he found the energy and finished the race.

He didn’t win, of course, with the extra challenge of another person. He came in 82^nd, although he did finish first in the relay. Or, we should say, they finished 82^nd and 1^st.  Spencer considered this Dayton’s race and was puzzled to be called a hero. To him, Dayton was the hero.

Jesus taught us to take of those in need, to be loving friends to everyone, to serve. He served and had a special fondness for people with disabilities. The Bible tells us of a blind man who often sat on the side of the road, begging. When he heard Jesus was coming, he was determined to meet him and to ask for a gift of healing. He tried calling out to Jesus but other people told him to stop and to not bother Jesus. In their minds, the blind man wasn’t important enough to bother someone as special as Jesus.

However, Jesus heard the calls and asked for the man to be brought to him. The blind man was suddenly nervous, but the apostles encouraged him to go ahead and approach Jesus. He did and Jesus lovingly and respectfully asked how he could help the man. The man asked for his sight and Jesus praised him for his great faith. He told the man it was his faith that had healed him. Imagine the lesson learned when people realized this man, whom they all thought was unimportant, had faith so great as to bring about a miracle.

And imagine the lessons people learned when they watched Spencer give up any real chance of winning the triathlon and as they watched him struggle to help his friend be able to experience the thrill of a triathlon. Not only did Spencer help Dayton, the story of his great and Christlike gift is helping teenagers and even adults learn how to be more like Jesus.

Watch the video of Dayton’s legs.

“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

Mormon teens have a theme this year and this year’s theme is I Believe. It’s focus is on this Article of Faith. Since it’s the longest one, it gives the teens a lot to work on. In the last article we talked about honesty, being true to yourself and your beliefs, and being chaste. The next item in the list is to be benevolent.

We don’t talk a lot about benevolence these days. You might find the word on a vocabulary test, but we don’t use it much. It means to be kind, compassionate, and caring. Benevolence is talked about in another part of this Article of Faith, where it says we believe in doing good to all men.

As a teenager, you have a lot of chances to do good to the people around you and to be benevolent. You’re surrounded by teenagers who are lonely or who have difficult lives. There are teenagers in your world who are hungry, or scared, or struggling to get through their classes. There are teenagers who don’t know Jesus Christ and teenagers who long for someone to listen and understand when they talk about their confusion over the world.

No one teenager can fix all the problems or help all the people who need help, but one teenager can make a huge difference. By choosing a few people, you can change that person’s world. When that person’s world is changed, it often changes other lives, too. You can’t tell how many lives will be changed because you made a small change in someone else’s life.

It isn’t just teenagers who need your help, either. Do you know a younger child who needs a mentor—someone to be a good example and to make sure they don’t grow up and land on a dangerous path? Do you know an elderly person who needs a cheerful young friend to drop by for a visit every now and then? Do you have a teacher at school, home, or church who could use a compliment about her teaching?

What about your own family? Could your parents benefit from a little benevolence? Without a doubt, they can. Parents do a lot of things teens don’t see or appreciate until they’re adults. It’s a tough job, but one kind word or act of service from their child can make everything so much easier. Why wait until you’re an adult to thank your parents for something they’ve done? It will mean even more if you do it today.

The next belief Mormon teens are working on in this Article of Faith is virtue. Virtue is another word that doesn’t get talked about much. Being virtuous, in a religious sense, means to live the way Jesus Christ taught us to live. It covers all the other things in this Article of Faith. A virtuous person won’t watch immoral movies or listen to music that has inappropriate words. A virtuous person puts down a book and gets rid of it as soon as she realizes it is not morally clean. Being virtuous requires us to be kind to others and to keep the commandments of God. Really, it means acting the way you’d act if Jesus were in the room watching you—which He is.

In the next article, we’ll talk about the last part, based on something Paul said in the New Testament of the Bible.

Lindsey plans parties everyone wants to go to. She has great ideas for activities that keep everyone busy and entertained while helping them live up to high moral standards.

Kevin is the person everyone turns to when there is a problem to be solved. He always seems to be able to come up with an idea for fixing what is wrong, and sometimes his ideas are unusual, which just makes them more fun to carry out.

Emily loves to cook but she hardly ever makes a recipe the way it’s written. She likes to make changes to them so the end result is something unique to her.

Brian’s little brother has dyslexia and has a really hard time learning to read. Everyone in the family helps him, but they all agree Brian is the best. He comes up with new techniques for solving the reading problems and also thinks of ways to make the tutoring sessions more interesting. He’s doing a great job of helping his brother actually want to learn to read.

Would you have thought of these kinds of things as being creative? Most people are creative in some little way every single day, but don’t realize it because they think of creativity in terms of certain talents. A Mormon apostle, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, said that if we think we aren’t creative we need to remember our heritage. We are God’s children and He is the most creative being in the universe. He created the entire world and everyone and everything in it. Since we are His children, we have inherited a gift for creativity from Him.

“You may think you don’t have talents, but that is a false assumption, for we all have talents and gifts, every one of us.5 The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.”

So all you have to do to be creative is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. What could you bring into your family’s life that wasn’t there before? What could you bring into your friend’s life that wasn’t there before?

Here’s an example of a little thing you could do. When you go to school this week, look around for someone who isn’t popular, maybe someone who eats lunch alone. Eat lunch with her—get your friends in on the project so they welcome this person. Convince them to be really nice to her and challenge each of them to learn three great things about this person. Everyone is interesting and admirable in some way, but it takes unselfishness and patience to find out what it is sometimes. That will be the job you and your friends set out to do. If it turns out this person is a good person with good character or real potential, start inviting her to join you every day at lunch and include her in your activities. Spread the word about the good stuff you’ve learned about her. It’s possible, when other people find out what is good, she will start finding other friends as well and that she will gain new confidence.

Does that sound more like a service project than a creative act? What will you be bringing into existence that wasn’t there before? You’ll be bringing friendship into the life of someone who doesn’t have it and self-esteem. Those are wonderful things to bring into someone’s life and it is a very creative way to live.

I remember when I was in high school a group of girls I knew entered our town’s beauty pageant. For some reason a mentally handicapped girl decided to enter. She wasn’t very pretty and her clothes and hair weren’t very nice. The other girls were talking about it and one worried that people might laugh at her when she walked on stage. She thought they should help the girl look better but they didn’t want to hurt her feelings by suggesting they thought she wasn’t pretty enough. Together, they concentrated on being creative and soon came up with the idea of having all the girls get together for a makeover party. They all helped make each other over and this way, the girl they were helping was just getting what all the other girls were getting. They practiced together, shared clothes and shopped together for what they needed.

Here’s an interesting side effect of this creative act, though. The girls did all this to help one girl, but in the end they wound up helping all the girls in the competition. As they worked together, they became friends and when the competition began, they were justifiably proud of every single girl because each person in the contest had helped every other girl be her very best for the competition. No matter who won, they would all have had a part in the winner’s success.

I don’t remember who did win, but I do remember they were asked to vote for the girl who had done the most to promote friendship among the contestants. They all chose the girl they first set out to help because she was the reason they had all become friends. That girl didn’t win the pageant, but she walked away with an award that was more important than one saying she was the prettiest girl—hers said she was the best friend.

The girls who entered the contest thought they were there to prove how beautiful they were but in the end, what they really proved was how nice they were—and how creative.

So, what creative thing are you going to do this week?

Watch the video of President Uchtdorf’s talk to learn more about being creative in small ways.

He first learned of the project when a Catholic woman spoke at his school. He felt the Holy Ghost prompting him to get involved and he took the prompting seriously. It’s changed his entire life as he’s made a big difference in the lives of the orphans and now, someday, he wants to have his own humanitarian aid program. He says he believes it is important to link charity to your faith.

Watch what Brandon is doing to change the world:

In this month’s New Era (a magazine for Mormon teens) a writer tells how she got roped into helping at the Bishop’s Storehouse, which is a food bank for Mormon church members. It’s a little different from most food banks, in that the person needing help first meets with her bishop (pastor) to determine what type of help is needed. They then are given a list of the items available and mark what they need, which is approved or adjusted by the bishop. They go into a building that looks like a grocery store, but with just a checkout counter instead of a cash register and get their order with help from volunteers.

At first Sarah resented having to do this service because it cut into her free time. After a while though, she realized she felt great knowing she was helping others and making a difference, and she began to work even harder at it.

There are a lot of volunteer jobs available for teenagers. The first step is to identify what you really care about or are passionate about. If you worry about people being hungry, you might want to work at a food bank. If the environment is your specialty, volunteer with an environmental group or just go out and pick up trash somewhere, maybe getting your friends to help out and ending with a picnic. Do you plan to be a teacher someday? Maybe a group is looking for tutors to help out in a summer program. Can’t live without a computer? Teach a class on computers at a senior center. No matter what social issues you care about, you’re likely to find some way to turn it into a volunteer job.

While you don’t get a paycheck in the form of cash, the paycheck you do get is worth more and lasts longer. Volunteering makes you feel like you’re helping to create the world you’re going to be living or running someday. The more problems we fix while you’re young, the better your world will be when you’re an adult.

You’ll never really know how many people you help. If you tutor one child, you might feel like you only helped one person. However, if that child grows up and goes to college because you taught him to read and to love reading, you’ve then helped his spouse and children, too. They’ll probably go to college because their dad did, and your influence can go on forever, because you may well have rescued hundreds of generations from a lifetime of poverty. Pretty amazing results for a few hours of tutoring!

Volunteering can also help you find out what you want to do for a career and give you job experience to put on your first resume. A lot of the volunteer work I’ve done helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life—sometimes I loved it and sometimes I hated it, but I learned what I’m willing to spend my life doing. Colleges like seeing volunteer work on your application.

Really, though, even though volunteer work can benefit you, the best reason for doing it is because it’s a great feeling to know you’re making a difference and not just sitting around complaining about what’s wrong with the world. Don’t complain—get up and go do something.

1. Listen

A lot of times, when we’re talking, we’re busy thinking up what we’re going to say next and we aren’t really listening to what the other person is saying. Listen deeply to what someone else is saying. Ask questions to learn even more. Choose questions that will help you understand what that person is saying, feeling, and thinking. “Were you scared?” “How would you handle that if it were up to you?” You’ll get a reputation for being the world’s best conversationalist and people will know you care about them—making for some great friendships. In the process, you’ll learn more about how others feel about things and this will make you more empathetic.

1. Get to know people who are different from you.

Be careful about this. If you choose friends who drink or use drugs, for instance, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble. Choose good quality friends, but choose them because they aren’t like you sometimes. For instance, if you’ve never had to worry much about whether or not your family will have enough food to get through the week, find someone at school who is in that situation and then spend time really understanding what life is like for that person. Don’t be judgmental—just listen, learn, and if possible, help. If you love to read, find someone who struggles to read. If you’re a great athlete, get to know the kid who is picked last for the team every single time.

1. Read books that show things from a different point of view.

One author wrote two children’s books. They were the same story, but one told it through the eyes of a child who was being bullied and the other book showed the story through the eyes of the bully. Children who read both were able to see both sides of the story and better understood the trials that might lead someone to becoming a bully. It didn’t make bullying right, but the children were able to understand him and to feel sorry for him. A book can give you insights into someone else’s mind, even if it’s fiction.

1. Do volunteer work.

When you are working with people who face a special challenge, you learn a great deal about their lives. If you go into the project with an open mind and loving heart, you’ll begin to develop empathy for them. Helping teach children to read who found it hard gave me empathy for what it’s like to not be able to read. I listened to them talk about their humiliation and their pain and as we worked together, I also learned to celebrate their small steps. Every volunteer project I do teaches me empathy for new things.

1. Imagine.

As a writer, I have to be able to see a story from the point of view of every character in order to make them come to life. Right now I’m struggling to understand a character I don’t really like very much. As I close my eyes and see things the way he does, he becomes a more sympathetic character to me. I like him much more now than I did when he first wandered into my story just because I understand him better. You don’t have to write a story, but try to picture yourself in the situation you don’t have empathy for just yet. How would you feel? What would you be afraid of? How would you want others to treat you? When it’s you, the situation seems different than when it’s someone else.

Okay, to develop real empathy, you’re going to have to get off the computer and out into the world. Have fun!

What did Jesus ask us to do?

When Jesus was living on the Earth, he often worried about the people who were hungry, including those who had come to hear him preach for several days. He had fasted for a very long time at the start of His ministry, so He understood hunger. However, He had never experienced sin, and yet He was as kind to the sinner and as able to know just what they needed as he was to those who were hungry. This is because Jesus, being perfect, had empathy.

Teens who are empathetic look at others differently than those who are not. A teen who isn’t empathetic might look at a friend whose family is poor and think, “Wow, they must have made really bad choices, or maybe they’re just lazy. They probably deserve to be poor, and helping them will just encourage them to stay lazy.” An empathetic teenager might thing, “It must be really scary for Jim right now. I wonder what I could do to help. Maybe I can find a way to get him to take a few things of mine I don’t need without making him feel like it’s charity. And I could ask my dad if he needs anyone else to help out at his work. Jim might want an afterschool job.”

Jesus told us that we were not to make final judgments about people. That is God’s job. We can never really know what happens in a person’s life to cause the challenges they’re facing, and we also don’t know what will happen to us in the future. No one is guaranteed to be safe from trials.

Just because studies show teens are less empathetic today doesn’t mean we have an excuse to be that way ourselves. Jesus taught us to love one another and to serve one another, regardless of what other teens are choosing.

How can you become more empathetic? The experts are saying one solution is to spend more time in the actual presence of people—not online or on the phone, but in person, talking and getting to know them. Another way is to avoid media that desensitizes you to pain and suffering.

When you see someone who has a hard life, ask yourself how you would feel in that situation and how you would want to be treated. Try to picture Jesus Christ watching the person and then imagine what He would do. Once you know what Jesus would do, and what He would want you to do, you’ll know what to do yourself. Remember, you could find yourself in the same situation or one equally painful yourself someday. What would you want others to do for you then?