So let's hear it for these crazy experiences this week WOOOOO I really am excited to share all about them!
CANNING HONEY: we spent time last Monday helping a lady out in her farm can honey and meet her husband who is a non member. Quick step by step is we washed and dried jars using a sink, dishwasher, towel, hairdryer, and oven. Then they have these nifty five gallon buckets with spickets on them that you use to fill the jars with honey. Then you wipe the inside throat of the bottle with a towel and put a cork in it then slap a label on it and shrink wrap the lid with a plastic cylinder and hairdryer. Pretty cool, she gave us each a bottle to take home, it was awesome.
MAKING PIZZA AND NERF WAR: we went over to a family in the ward to make homemade pizzas with them. We tried to make it gospel related and said that the English muffin base was a testimony of Christ and we need prayer as sauce and scriptures as cheese etc... but all that really ended up happening is fighting over cheese sauce flying around and kids laughing and screaming. We went outside and divided into trams and had a long promised nerf war, once again we tried to share a thought that we were like the 2,000 stripping warriors and that "we are young but our minds are firm and we do put our trust in God continually" what we should have talked about instead was Samuel the lamanite because we were getting shot at as we preached!!! It was so fun though! Did I mention it is a family of 6 boys? Pure chaos, but so fun.
WEEDING GARDENS: a lady in the ward is in the process of moving but she called us up to go and help her weed the garden of a couple in need. This is the same garden we helped plant two months ago and let me tell you there were more than just a couple of weeds growing! It was great though there were a lot of conversations going on and the couple was so appreciative of our help.
SHOVELING INSULATION: our favorite relief society president asked us if we could come help them with their house renovations when we were in the area. We had planned a day to be up by their house anyway so we headed over and found ourselves wearing masks and hats and shoveling insulation from piles on the ground and passing it up to the person on the ladder who would toss it in a hole in the upper portion of the wall/ceiling. It was funny because the shape and angle of my nose didn't work well with the mask that they first gave us so I had to wear this heavy duty gas mask looking one. They were all teasing me that "my nose was too high in the air to do this kind of work"
PAINTING AND HANGING SIGNS: in preparation for the upcoming Rockwood "Polk Salad Festival" (pronounced poke salat festival) we painted signs and hung them up around town. When I say hung I mean we took those metal poles with the tamp cylinder thing and pounded them into the ground and then ziptied wood planks with holes drilled through them to them. For all y'all who are like me and didn't have a clue what Polk is... it's basically a weed that grows really tall and you cut it down and boil it three times with bacon grease and serve it with eggs... um... ew... but it's huge here, so much in fact that there is a festival for it. So this upcoming Saturday Jacobson and I will be serving at it and meeting lots of new people and trying it so stay tuned for that!
GATHERING EGGS AND FEEDING COWS: our ward mission leader's farm is so fun, they have around 100 chickens and 5 cows. We went there for ward correlation and had dinner and then helped them gather eggs. Their chickens are free range and so you have to look everywhere for eggs, in tires, under tables, in buckets, high and low looking for eggs. Then you put them in a 5 gallon bucket and "water test 'em" if they are had eggs they shoot to the top and float, if they are good eggs they stay at the bottom of the bucket. Then we fed the leftover corn and crescent rolls from dinner to the cows. They have a mama cow named Mama Cow and a calf named Butch because when he grows up he's "gonna go to the butcher!" (Read that in your best southern accent) We also took a group photo holding the chicks that hatched around Easter... they are growing up so fast!!!
BALING AND THROWING HAY: alright so first off, forget trashbagging while working out... if you wanna sweat big time wear garments and it's the same effect if not worse. We spent a few hours with the elders and our farm family that we are always working with (pulling out blackberry bushes, gardening, banding goats, you remember) they had their hay baled by some neighbors with their tractors and then it was up to the elders to load the bales from the field to the trailer (pulled by a mini van) and bring it to us in the barn to unload and stack it repeated about 8 times averaging about 26 bales a load. I found muscles I didn't know even existed.
So that concludes all of the service experiences we had now let me share the effects of helping out.
RESULTING EFFECTS
CANNING HONEY = CHURCH ATTENDANCE: as a result of helping out our sweet Relief society sister we were able to meet her nonmember husband and chat with him and she was able to have time and prepare for a neighborhood cookout (theyn aren't called barbeques around here that's a type of food and they look at you weird if you say it's an event) anyway she was able to work on that and it went smoothly and she sold a bunch of honey there and was able to come to church the next day without being too worn out from all the events. She hasn't been in a while so it really was exciting to have her back.
PIZZA AND NERF = APPRECIATIVE MOM: it really meant the world to that mother of 6 boys to have a meal provided and time for her kids to run around and play and for us to be good sports and be willing to be attacked and attack.
WEEDING GARDEN = LESS STRESSED COUPLE, WARD INFO, AND NEEDS: we helped relieve a burden and listened to both lighthearted as well as serious conversations and received a lot of info and heard a lot of stories about the ward. One of the things that I have continually learned and seen in this area is the effect of gossip and judgmental words. Many try to justify harsh comments by saying "I'm just being honest." I HATE THAT... more often than not the word "honest" should be substituted for the word "rude" because telling a woman that she made a bad relief society president, suggesting that a young boy might be gay, telling a woman not to come back to church because her house is a health hazard, saying that people aren't worth the ward's time, and sharing information that is confidential and only meant for the bishop is rude and destructive! It is judgmental, it is ugly, and it is of the devil. Satan is the father of contention and he THRIVES off gossip. I understand it is a two way street... there is one person who chooses to "speak their mind" and another person who decides how to react to it. We all have agency. But my goodness no one likes to be talked about negatively and cutting words are unfortunately the easiest to remember and hardest to repair. There are many less active members and wayward children in this area because of the lack of holding tongues. Lack of loving the neighbor as thyself. I know I always need to be better and watchful of things I say, we all do. One of my favorite favorite quotes is: "Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about." How different the world and the church would be if we remember that truth in every social interaction we have... Woof, ok let me take a breath and step off my soapbox for a minute, I would apologize for that rant but I'm not going to because it's a lesson I think we all would do well pondering about.
INSULATION = FEEDBACK AND TEAM UP: while cleaning up insulation and helping prepare dinner and wash dishes we asked the relief society president and her husband the first counselor in the bishopric input and advice at what we could do to be better missionaries. Their response was interesting. They said they didn't know what to suggest as far as improvement... they were very impressed by our work ethic and desire to serve. They complimented us for being willing to work with the ward members and said that that was what would be of most value to us as missionaries: to continue to build good trusting relationships with the ward and be inclusive, helpful, and spend time with them. Then she came with us to a follow-up appointment to a bible referral we had received last week. When we arrived the husband of the lady who had requested a free bible came out of the house and began talking with us and gave the famous line "We already go to church, we're Baptist" oh if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that one! However our sweet Relief society president kept the faith and kept the conversation going by asking some inspired questions. It's so powerful having a local member along with you, they are able to relate on a different level by knowing the area and having more life experience. We ended up sharing the parable of the prodigal son and though by the end he still wasn't interested we were able to leave knowing a seed had been planted and he had a good experience meeting members of the church.
PAINTING SIGNS = APPRECIATION DINNER APPT AND FUTURE TEAM UP AND TRANSFER RIDE: the people heading up the Polk Salad Festival invited us to a dinner at their house and also said as "payment" They will drive us to appointments and/or wherever we need to go. We are going to take them up on thst for sure! Probably next Wednesday on TRANSFER day, more info to come on that next week ;) ;)
GATHERING EGGS AND FEEDING COWS = CATCH UP, CHORES, SMILES, STEPKIDS: our ward mission leader and his wife are always so happy to have us up at their house. His wife is the cutest southern belle lady and told us thst she thinks of us as her daughters. They are older and have been married just over a year and never went on a honeymoon because they have the farm, we told them in a year we'll come back and watch the farm and they can take an overdue vacation. I just love them
BALING HAY = TWO DINNER APPTS TWO TEAM UP VISITS: we went with our farm family second mom to take dinner to a less active she visit teaches and to find another lady that doesn't come any longer because she was told not to because her house was a health hazard... I already ranted about that so I'm not going to again, we were able to find her. She is living in a shed on her son's property, this woman is like skin and bones, just broke my heart. But she is extremely spiritual and said she missed church and would like to come back next week. So the lady that drove with us said she would pick her up next week. They are both amazing, I am awestruck at their examples of faith and endurance.
I have learned this week that service opens doors. Think about how many times Christ first served than taught. He healed, He fed, He raised the dead, caused the blind to see, strengthened the feeble knees, lifted up heads that hung down. Over and over again He served, if I'm trying to become a disciple of His then I need to do the same. First serve than teach. These are lessons that weren't listed in my call to serve, they are lessons I am learning as I commit each day to do this work. I love it. I have a lot to do a lot to improve on but I am not alone.
And neither are you. Please look around and serve there are opportunities all around us. God's children surround us and He needs us to help them.
They are more important than numbers, more important than time.
See a need, fill a need.
Have a blessed week!!!
Love,
Hermana Hall
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