My wife is trying to get a quilt done for her mom for Christmas last Saturday. After the ward Christmas breakfast she casually told the relief society president where she was and what she was doing next. The rs pres realized my wife was over her head and impromptu dropped everything and spent 3 hours that morning helping my wife with her quilt.
They take meals to people all the time when they are in difficult circumstances. VT often produces real friendships and real help (and sometimes it's a joke). Significant help is given with children and developing life skills. Good people use the vehicle of the relief society to do huge acts of service all the time.
It's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a lot of good and a lot of bad in the Mormon society.
No the church isn't true and yes it probably qualifies as a cult, but many many people in the Mormon church are honestly very service oriented and do the best they know how to help others.
Ronas has a point - Mormons do really reach out to help other Mormons. But the problem is, what Mormons think of service and who Mormons consider needy is a little off the beaten track of what true service and true need are. Don't get me wrong - I've had RS sisters drop what they are doing and really help me out of more than one bind but it's the same sort of things real friends do for each other. It's not really service - it's just being a friend.
Service is collecting for a food bank, teaching an "at-risk" child to read after school, collecting coats for the homeless, putting together a fund raiser for Boys and Girls Clubs, helping out at a 5K that raises funds for some family who can't afford a child's heart transplant... Helping is one thing and it's very important but giving actual service to those with actual need is something different than just helping out a friend.
I agree, Mormons often help other Mormons, and often that does include taking meals over, even if people are capable of cooking for themselves, or they had frozen previously prepared meals ahead of time.
To me, service is doing things for the community regardless of religion, such as gathering food for the food bank, or collecting baby supplies and clothing for the local battered women's shelter. If there's a disaster in the area, service means helping in the clean-up efforts without wearing shirts that advertise your church.
During our most difficult trials a few years ago it was the Relief Society who acted like they cared. Not one single Priesthood holder ever put his arm around my shoulder in the hall, and very few even cared enough to ask how things were going. While the RS sent VTs over to visit us, our HomeTeachers actually stopped as soon as they became aware of what was going on.
The Relief Society were there for my wife and for me and for my family, but the Priesthood could not have shown less interest. We never even asked for anything at all, but the sisters knew when to offer what was most important.
The church likes to proclaim that the restoration of the Priesthood is a sign of its divine calling, but it is really the Relief Society who make it worth anything.
Our ward did lots of service projects, like collecting women's clothing for women who were trying to re enter the workforce. Like working with the nearby school to provide help for needy children. Like volunteering at the local food bank. Putting together beds at the interfaith sanctuary. Helping people move.
Taking meals to a non member family in the ward when the mom had brain cancer surgery.
Then of course the church related service such as working in the humanitarian center and the cannery.
I think the women had very good hearts. But sometimes I sensed that we were reaching out into the community to be SEEN by the community.