A Real Work Week, Sort Of

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Today is the day we get ready for Sunday. RoLayne is busy preparing items for the meal that we share with the soldiers after meetings on Sunday. This week we had our first opportunity to work at the Turn Around Shop. This is sort of a exchange store. Folks can bring in anything that they would like to donate, very much like a Goodwill or Deseret Industries.  The volunteers then sort through everything, keep what is useful and throw the rest out. Generally, the folks are pretty careful to only bring in things that are useful. The difference between the Goodwill Industry model and The Turn Around model is that only active duty or immediate family members of active duty can come in and take what they need without any cost. They are allowed to come in once a week to “shop” for items. It is a neat idea for the young families and seems to be popular with some. The shop is sponsored by the chaplain's office. This week we found out that our primary contact and ally at the chaplain office is going in for some very serious surgery next week. We expressed our concern for her and hope and pray that things go well for her. She is the secretary to the head chaplain and pretty well runs the place. We have offered any assistance that we might be able to provide in her absence. Her assistant was pretty well overwhelmed on Tuesday when we were there, but was able to give me a call on Thursday and give us an update on Jo. We drove to Tucson to pick up a few items out of the trailer and do some shopping at Costco. We got a chance to visit for a few minutes with our daughter Lori but left before the kids were out of school so did not get to see them. Today is our youngest daughter Lisa’s 29^th birthday. We tried to call her but she must be out doing something fun with her husband because she did not answer.

Last night, the ward that we meet with had their trunk or treat activity. I think that they had half of the town at the festivities. One of the ladies put it on some kind of social media site where she has several thousand followers. I think that many of them showed up. It was fun and we met a few people. Today, bright and early we went out to a little town named Huachuca City and worked at their city offices as  well as along the highway digging up turf and weeds from the hardpan around the buildings and trimming trees and loading branches into large dumpsters. It was the stake service day. I have included some pictures of our missionary district after the project. 

Our District Missionaries at the Service Project

RoLayne Working

Ken Working

Sunday, October 27, 2013

  

We had a wonderful meeting today with the soldiers. There is such a good spirit with these young men and to watch them participate in the meeting, speaking, administering the sacrament, leading the singing, praying. It was very touching. We are really growing to love and care for these men. They remind me of the “ Sons of Helaman”. They are going through a very trying time but they are all volunteers. I would be proud to serve alongside any of them. Most of them are returned missionaries. I am going to include a couple of photos of these young soldiers. After the meetings, Sister Kovacs and RoLayne  feed them a light lunch. Today they had deviled eggs and tossed salad.  

The newlywed picture is of a young couple who have been married just a few months. She lives in an apartment alone down here and sees him for just a few hours on the weekend, no overnights. In the photo of four young men, three are returned missionaries and the one on the far right is not a member but is a fine young man. His buddies refer to him as a dry Mormon. Today was his first day at our meetings. He seemed very comfortable and said that he would be back next week. 

Newlyweds, he is a soldier in training 

Four new soldiers in our group