For any who don't know, the overwhelming majority of people who serve in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints receive no financial compensation for the service they provide. The only exceptions are a few positions which are full-time, such as general authorities who help run the worldwide church, but as a general rule service is voluntary.
For most of my life, I thought of this as just the way things are, but lately I've been thinking about how much of a blessing it is in my life. Since church leaders aren't paid, service usually isn't full-time and therefore it gets distributed more throughout the congregation instead of having a pastor or minister and perhaps a few others that do most everything. The end result is that everyone has to help out in order to make things work.
Over the years, I've had the opportunity to teach children, teenagers, adults, be involved in cub and boy scouts, sing in choirs, participate in youth camps, work with men's groups, do secretarial work, translate, work with stake leaders, and help run a local congregation in addition to serving as a full-time missionary, all at different times and for different periods of time. Each experience has been different and given me the chance to learn in different ways. Some have been things I've felt like I was good at, while others have been things that I'd never done before and perhaps never imagined myself doing.
It has helped me a lot to get to know each different group of people a little bit and come to understand them a little better. It's also been a blessing to have uncomfortable experiences that have made me think differently or adjust to new things in order to be successful. I am grateful for how these experiences have helped me grow.
