There is no end to the good we can do!

This last week I had a new roommate move in to my apartment. Before she moved in and before I had met her I wondered how we would all get along. Our roommate who moved out (because she got married) was amazing and was the one who glued us all together. Now that she was gone, our apartment made the conscious decision to put forth the effort to stay united and maintain the wonderful feeling we had in our little home. This meant reaching out to our new roommate and helping her feel like she belonged. It turns out that she is an amazing girl and getting to know her has been so much fun! I think that because we approached this situation with love and with an open mind, we were blessed and have had a smooth transistion.
When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." but coming in second is: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22: 37-40; http://scriptures.lds.org). I believe that this Christ-like love is the beginning of success to any relationship. From my own experience, I have seen that when I serve others, I begin to care for them. With new roommates, this is only a precurser of our friendship; with my family members, my love for them deepens; with strangers, I gain a greater understanding of their situation in life and can appreciate their decisions.
As a prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley stressed this point: " have wondered why there is so much hatred in the world. We are involved in terrible wars with lives lost and many crippling wounds. Coming closer to home, there is so much of jealousy, pride, arrogance, and carping criticism; fathers who rise in anger over small, inconsequential things and make wives weep and children fear. . .There is no end to the good we can do, to the influence we can have with others. Let us not dwell on the critical or the negative. Let us pray for strength; let us pray for capacity and desire to assist others. Let us radiate the light of the gospel at all times and all places, that the Spirit of the Redeemer may radiate from us" (Gordon B. Hinckley; The Need for Greater Kindness, May 2006; http://lds.org). From this we learn that today, more than ever, we need to be more sensitive to the needs of those around us, we need to be thoughtful, kind and loving and actively engaged in doing good because like President Hinckley said, "there is no end to the good we can do!"