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Our Church President and Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, said the following in a talk given in October of 2009:

Just over a year ago, I was interviewed by the Church News prior to my birthday. At the conclusion of the interview, the reporter asked what I would consider the ideal gift that members worldwide could give to me. I replied, “Find someone who is having a hard time or is ill or lonely, and do something for him or her.”

I was overwhelmed when this year for my birthday I received hundreds of cards and letters from members of the Church around the world telling me how they had fulfilled that birthday wish. The acts of service ranged from assembling humanitarian kits to doing yard work.

Dozens and dozens of Primaries challenged the children to provide service, and then those acts of service were recorded and sent to me. I must say that the methods for recording them were creative. Many came in the form of pages put together into various shapes and sizes of books. Some contained cards or pictures drawn or colored by the children. One very creative Primary sent a large jar containing hundreds of what they called “warm fuzzies,” each one representing an act of service performed during the year by one of the children in the Primary. I can only imagine the happiness these children experienced as they told of their service and then placed a “warm fuzzy” in the jar.  (Thomas S. Monson, “What Have I Done for Someone Today?,” Liahona, Nov 2009, 84–87)

We, like so many others, loved this story and adopted the idea of the "warm fuzzy" jar in our own family. We filled it with fuzzy colored cotton balls – big sizes for big acts of service, little ones for small acts. And slowly (with a little help from an eager 3-year old) we filled our jar.  We had decided as a family that we would go ice skating when we had the jar filled up.  We finished filling the jar early in the summer, but didn't get around to the ice skating until August. But we had a great time (some of us more than others – Jacob is a natural on skates, the rest of us not so much; poor Caleb had a few scrapes and bruises). And so we empty our jar and start again…this time I think the goal is to go rock climbing when we fill it up. Either way, it's a great way for us to track our progress and remember to serve others (and each other).