Community Service

After serving in PTA locally for about 15 years, I figured this was my last year of doing that kind of service for my community.  I doubled dipped a few years with Strawberry Days volunteering too.  But this week I start a new community service chapter in my life.

I was asked to sit on a citizens' committee regarding our Public Safety Building that is proposed for our town.  It was on our local municipal ballot last year, but the rush to get it a bond for the building on the ballot that quickly had some people imagining there was some nefarious business going on and their suspicions spread like wild fire and the bond issue was voted down--along with our mayor and a few others on the city council.

This committee will meet with the consulting architects and the police and fire department heads and then consider the costs, locations, option,s and needs to make the most efficient and logistically feasible choice.  I'm sure I will learn a LOT.

We are only scheduled for four committee meetings--plus a large city wide introductory meeting tomorrow night--so we will need to work fast.  I am kind of happy that the meetings are already set and we have a time limit.  Otherwise people get in their heads this is the most important thing EVER and meetings last forever.

I'm happy to serve my neighbors and friends here.  I don't think I know anyone else on the committee, so I have many more potential friends to meet.  I do like our little town and I know that when we serve each other every is blessed.  Wish me luck!

Some Days Are Just Like That

As the Boy and I left for school and work yesterday, there was a little overnight snow on his truck but the roads were clear and the snow on the grassy areas didn't look like it would last long.  So off we went to where we spend our days.

For the REST OF THE DAY the snow kept falling, along with a persistent wind that whipped the snow all around.  It would have  been a really good day to stay home and bake while listening to Christmas music.  Work sure gets in the way sometimes.

The snow NEVER let up!  But the time I left work, just after 3 PM, the roads were covered and the snow just kept right on falling.  People, of course, are idiot drivers in the first snowfall of the year.  And they proved that again today.

So I carefully toddled home, with the Durango in 4WD.  As I pulled closer to the house, I noticed that the driveway and the sidewalks.  I drove right into the garage and parked my car.

As I came into the house, I couldn't hear The Boy anywhere.  His truck was parked in it's place, and The Girl's car was still where she left it Saturday.  After calling upstairs, I hear a voice form the bathroom: "Mom, I just finished shoveling the driveway and I had to pee.  I'll be down in a minute."

That good boy carefully hurried home so he could beat me to the house and get the driveway cleared off before I had to drive on it.

I'm one lucky mom.

Flashback

Today I had a chance to help with some physical therapy for Orin Voorheis.  He was shot in the head as a missionary in Argentina several years ago.  He has several disabilities from that injury and for the years since neighbors and church members have been going in at assigned shifts to help with his exercises.  Today was my day.

I have not signed up to do this before as it was always just as school was getting started and I had other obligations, but today was a guilt-induced volunteer job.  And to be honest, I was nervous about going in.  But once I got there, I had a flashback that I didn't expect at all.

Initially, I thought I would recall how my grandparents became more and more bedridden as they aged and their illnesses took over their lives.  But instead, I had some fairly emotional flashback of Dear Friend Tammy, who passed away a year and a half ago from ALS.

Today my assignment as to help the little home health nurse with some exercises, and for that we took Orin outdoors to the grass and worked with him on a crash mat before trying to get him back into his wheelchair and back inside.  The little home health nurse is quite petite, and spoke beautiful Spanish, but her English was not so good, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing.  Today, Orin had little energy left to help us lift him off the mat and into the chair. 

All I could think of was that I couldn't do this and was going to hurt him.  The same things that happened once with Tammy when she was choking and I couldn't get the "coughing" machine to work for her.  It was terrifying.

I really thought after my experiences with my grandparents I would be OK to help Orin today.  But the fear of hurting him--just like it was that day with Tammy--was overwhelming.

And I should add, adrenaline not only makes your heart race when you are scared, but I broke into a sweat that made me look like I had just run a marathon.    My hear was racing like it had run too, but I know it was just from the fear.

I don't think I'll be going back.  This was my only date on his schedule for the month.  But should I be guilted in to signing up again, I think my fear and trembling will be enough to keep me from giving in.  I know it is a good thing to do, the charitable, right thing to do.  But there must be other good, charitable things I do in the schools and community that can count for that kind of service.  I hope.

Eye Opener

There is no glory in being involved in a mediocre cause.

I attended a training meeting this morning in Salt Lake about the young women program where I serve at church at the moment.  It was one of the best meetings I have sat in for a long time.  I came away feeling that what I did mattered, and it counted for a lot in the lives of the young women I serve.  That is not a feeling I have consistently.  But I have regularly felt that what I did mattered to God, who knew what I was doing and what I was trying to do but not quite making it.

I ended up with seven pages of handwritten notes.  I left with impressions of what I can improve, and felt only hopeful in those thoughts rather than guilty.  I found new motivation to serve with purpose and charity and renewed vigor.  I came home knowing that my family and I are blessed as I try to help others through my service.  And I felt such an overwhelming love of the Savior to me personally.  That is truly a gift.

Simple Pleasures of Service

Today I had a chance to help Dear Friend Amy who is preparing her classroom for the return of students in just a few more weeks. This good lady serves in the Young Women's presidency with me and teaches at the high school. In fact, she will be The Girl's pre-calculus teacher this fall.

Amy has a L-shaped teacher's desk that she wanted to make a skirt for as it has no back to it. However, she is not a sewer. She had called me and asked me if I could help her with this project, which I know means "Can you sew this for me?" And I said I could do that.

So today was the day we measured and planned and then went to the fabric store where she did not have an anxiety attack, as she previously thought she'd do. Instead she selected a gorgeous Asian inspired print for the desk and a couple of coordinating fabrics to cover the otherwise blah bulletin board in her classroom.

We got the bulletin boards covered today and I have the fabric for the desk skirt which I will work on tomorrow, if all goes well here at home.

It was nice to know I was helping a friend who needed my help, and it was a delightful way to spent a few hours just enjoying her company all the while getting something done she needed to do before school begins.

When I finish the skirt, I'll try to remember my camera and get a photo of the room all dolled up. I hope it helps her feel at home int he classroom where she spends more time during the school year than she does at her home. And I hope it illustrates to her students how much she loves her work and, consequently, them.

Angels in the Outfield

We are off the Girls' Camp this morning. The Girl is a 4th Year this year. And is very excited, but still insisted on going to swim practice before meeting at the church for the ride to camp. She has 15 minutes between one and the other. Oh, to be that young and carefree. Anyhooo.

It has been a very stressful week preparing for camp. Looking at the pile of stuff in the front room this morning that I need to bring, you'd think I was going to be gone for weeks--not 5 days. I think I took less stuff for Trek last summer. But that is how it always seems to go.

As the stress was accumulating and I was getting more and more frustrated, I began to think that maybe this whole Girls' Camp regimen was overrated and I should just stay home. I jumped on the computer to waste time and avoid/ignore my life for a minute.

I mindlessly clicked on Facebook, the funnest waste of time on the Internet, and
it showed me that I had one message waiting. Oooh. That is less common a FB occurrence for me, so that was fun. I clicked on it, of course.

There was a message from a girl I haven't seen or hardly thought of in twenty years. Andera was a girl at Camp Ritchie, my home Girls' Camp in California, one year when my friend Heidi and I were Fourth Year cabin counselors.

With us single and in college, the camp ladies of my home stake always gave Heidi and me that group because at hte time the Adventurers when backpacking for 5 days & 4 nights and the "grown ups" didn't want to take that assignment. Heidi and I loved those girls. We loved taking them out and getting to do our own thing with them. Andera was one of our "girls" in 1989 or 1990.

She wrote that I didn't need to remember her but that I had been her cabin counselor that year and at the time, unbeknownst to us, she had been having a really hard summer when we got her. She wrote that she was facing some personal choices that had to do with her own faith and testimony, whether or not Girls' Camp was worth it for her, or if any of it really mattered. You know, the stuff more 15 or 16 years old go through at some point.

She wrote that she appreciated all that Heidi and I did to make the environment and mood of camp so fun and enjoyable for the girls, for her. With us, she felt we wanted her there and she knew we loved her as part of that group.

Then she wrote that that one week with us backpacking along the spine of the Sierra Nevada's made the difference for her. She decided that the Gospel was a good thing and it could make her happy if she followed it. She recognized that she was worthy of being happy and remembered again the way to achieve that kind of lasting happiness. She thanks me for caring and giving my time to serve as a counselor at camp.

Well. There you have it.

This is why I am going to Girl's amp again this morning. Girls' Camp has long been the place where I believe young women gain their testimonies. Testimonies of Jesus Christ as our Savior are strengthened and deepened as the girls experience life in nature, trying things they don't usually do, with people who love them outside of their families.

That is why I go. That is why I stress myself out and pack too much junk and over prepare with treats and skits and games and songs.

For reasons like Andera's; for girls just like Andera and all the other young women I have had the privilege of serving over the past twenty three or so years. I really wouldn't have it any other way.

Better Than Wringing Hands

This week's devastating earthquake in Haiti just makes me heartsick. The reports of destruction and death on that island are staggering and certain to increase in number and value. Wow.

It feels inadequate to just pray for the people there. Yet, I know my budget at this point can't offer much more than that. I feel guilty about that. I feel like we should do more. That I should be doing more.

The flip side of that guilt is the feeling that I am exhausting myself in service within my own circle of influence. I serve the young women in our community through my church calling. I serve the children in our town and the neighboring town through my service in PTA. I serve my Dear Friend Tammy directly each week as I offer a day of respite to her husband. I try to serve my friends as they need me here. I serve my family each day, to the best of my ability.

Does my service here compensate in any way for service I wish I could offer others affected in Haiti? Probably not, but it is better than wringing my hands here and doing nothing in either place, I suppose.

I recognize that I am very, very blessed. I live in a free country, filled with economic opportunities. I have resources available year 'round and at my fingertips. I enjoy relative prosperity and have flexibility in my responsibilities. My life has little to do with the lives of the people of Haiti.

But I have visited that region on vacation. I enjoyed the local people I met along the way. Yet, I feel for them as they are children of God. Just like us. So I guess I will continue doing what I do, serving God's children here, and hope He will bless His Haitian children as they need Him and hope He will see my efforts and bless us all, every one.

Eleventh Day, Eleventh Month

11) Today I am grateful for everyone who has ever worn the uniform of the US Military. It is Veteran's Day today, and sadly, this is a woefully under emphasized holiday. There have been too few expressions of gratitude to these men and women. There is too little respect offered to them, despite their efforts, sacrifice and dedication.

I am grateful for those willing to serve without being compelled. Those that feel in their soul a sense of duty to their country. Those that answer that duty call with optimism and hope.

My world is a better place because of the work, tears, blood and lives given by veterans from across the country and over the years. And today, particularly, I am very grateful for them.

Another Tender Mercy

In sacrament meeting today we had a pair of guys in our ward Young Men's presidency speak on service. They are both great guys and the YM president is just delightful. He has a beautiful family and his lovely wife is The Girl's Beehive teacher--how can you NOT love that?

Anyway, as we were leaving the chapel today I stopped to tell Brother P., the YM president, what a great job he had done and he said, "Did you catch my reference?"

Confused, I thought, "Huh?!"

Seeing my dazed look, he began--as his wife joined him--saying, "that comment about the sister who was always helping someone when we first moved into the ward, that we called 'Sister Service' because we didn't know her name...that was you. I'm sure you caught that, right?"

I had thought he had meant Dear Friend Doris, who can consistently earn that moniker too. You could have blown me over with a feather.

On the way home, I was thinking out loud and mentioned to the kids that I am surely glad they saw me as "Sister Service" when they could have easily called me "Sister Snarky" on a given day.

It touched me that someone was watching and could recognize my efforts--though certainly not worthy of such a name. I was grateful to have been a good example, rather than what I feel like some days. I was grateful, not that he used that in his talk, but that is made a good impression, and that I was caught being good.

It made me more grateful to a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to prompt someone else to say something to remind me that He, as always, knows what I try to do. Even when I don't do it perfectly, or right, or even close. He knows the intents of my heart and all the things I wish I could do for Him to serve those around me more perfectly. For that reminder, I was humbled and grateful. It was another example of the tender mercies of the Lord in my life.

I Have Much to Learn, Yet.

I'm taking a step back from any political thoughts here today, though they would be more timely and apropos today than say, tomorrow. But I just can't bring myself to think another day about it.

Instead today I would like to share something that I have been pondering since Monday.

I go twice a week to care for my friend, Tammy. I generally do her family's laundry and dishes, and some light housekeeping as well as sit and visit with her while her husband is at his office or getting a chance to go play racquetball with Genius Golfer.

My days got switched up this week and Monday morning I spent with her rather than Friday this week. Mondays are always a little more haggard than most days due to the early out day and the pile of things that add up over the weekend. This week was no different, except that instead of my standard issue Monday at home doing my junk, I was at Tammy's helping with hers.

I think I go into her visit with a list of "things to do" and if I get to everything there, then I have been successful. But Monday, Dear Friend Tammy's neighbor came over and covered while I ran to get Tammy some lunch. When I got back, Tammy's husband, Mr. Rick was home already and the home health aide nurse was there and together they were washing Tammy's hair, so both of us--the neighbor and me--were done.

I was thanking this good neighbor for always being "on call" as it were with Tammy and for covering, specifically, for me that day. She then said something very profound, and this is what has been on my mind all week. She said, "This is the best part of my week. Tammy has always been a reverent person, but when you are sitting with her you get a chance to soak in that reverence and feel a little closer to our Heavenly Father. It is a pretty special glimpse into the eternities. I'm blessed when I am with her."

I have always been so concerned in the stuff I was doing that I didn't stop to think of the why part of the question. In my heart I know that I do look forward to being there, in that I can serve Tammy and her family in a a very temporal, physical way. I can do what the girls and Mr. Rick don't have time or energy to do. By serving them, I can show them that we love them.

Dang. Sweet Neighbor is right. And I haven't taken the time to appreciate that aspect of helping over there. Dang. I always seem a little slow in the spiritual pick up. I do get it eventually, but I sure feel that it is shown to me by someone else before I "get it" on my own. And perhaps, I'm a little more preoccupied with the temporal needs here than I should be. I just know that if I were in her shoes, I would want to have my family taken care of and that is something I am capable of doing.

So I reflect on this good neighbor's thoughts and chastise my own. I will try more to feel the Spirit of serving, rather than the doing of the service and checking it off the list. It was an eye opening thought that I desperately needed to hear. I am grateful that our Heavenly Father is so loving and kind that He will send me the message one way or another until I receive it. I hope I get it sunk deep into my heart so the service I offer in the future will be not only helpful to those I serve, but acceptable to Him as well.

So much to learn, and so little time to learn it well.

The Local FEMA: Friend's Emergency Management Agency

Littlest Brother, who got to stay with me this morning while Dear Friend Micheale was at school.

Today my Dear Friend Micheale had school and her hubby was working and her mother and mother in law were also at work--a perfect storm of childcare disaster if there ever was one. So I took all the kids to the elementary school this morning for classes and held on to her 2 1/2 year old for the morning, then we picked up his Preschool Brother and played until mom got back from school just after lunch time.

Whew! I am tired! They are great little guys, but I am not in preschool shape anymore.

I don't mind this kind of service as opposed to the "service" that I give grudgingly to people I don't know but who call because I am not a work-for-a-paycheck mom and I happen to live in their ward or because the RS president give them my number and tells them "Oh, she's home in the daytime. Give her a call". When actual friends call, I am grateful to be able to do something to help them. In this case, I knew that Micheale would have exhausted all her other avenues before she called, so she must really need me.

Genius Golfer trying to move the shed over the weekend with the floor jacks!

So I let the entertainment begin. Littlest Brother was here while a giant crane truck came today and got our shed moved about 1.5 feet from the property line, per a city ordinance we were written up for in May. (However lame I think the ordinance is, we still felt like we needed to move the stupid shed and get in compliance.) So we hired the crane guys to come do it for us--in about 10 minutes. Sure beats the hours Genius Golfer spent with four floor jacks over the weekend trying to move it himself. Come to find out, the dumb thing weighs 6,000 pounds! No wonder we could not do it ourselves. The whole adventure made for fun distraction for the little boy, who otherwise was stuck with me and my really lame and very old toys.

The Crane Guys are ready to hoist that bab boy of a shed into the RIGHT place!

So the Crane Guys saved my muscles, GG's sanity, Littlest Brother's interest, and my grief with the city. Meanwhile, I was "saving" Micheale's peace of mind so she can go to class, take the test, and be a good example to all of us about life long learning. Save a little there, save a little here.

I suppose both or either of these systems is sensationally better the FEMA plan after Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago. Maybe if we just stick together and do the saving locally, we can avoid most disasters we would need the actual FEMA for after all. That sounds better to me. Plus the crane project was pretty cool to watch! Even if I a little older than 2 1/2 years old.

I've Been Recycled!

Like a good pile of newspapers or a trash bag full of aluminum cans, I find myself today, recycled.

Our Stake Young Women presidency was released yesterday. We knew it was coming for several months, but it was at an early morning meeting yesterday when we got the word that the change would happen that day.

So, they read our names as we were released, and I had about 15 seconds to breathe freely before my name was read again as the 1st counselor to the Stake YW President, again. I knew that it was coming for only about a week and a half, but I was prompted to feel that I would still be serving in the YW in the stake since about camp. Since I had that confirmation, I was simply glad not to be called as the president. I'll happily serve again as a counselor.

So, nothing much has changed in my Church responsibilities. I'm still serving with three wonderful women, supporting 6 congregations worth of YW leaders and teachers, and worrying about and loving approximately 150+ young women aged 12-18 in our stake.

Instead of the recycling the trash scenario, I suppose I should look at it more as you only take the time to recycle something of value--otherwise it isn't worth the saving and collecting and dragging it down to the recycling place. I just hope my value to these good sisters is apparent to them and I am worth the saving and collecting and dragging.

That makes me a Service Snob?!

I got a call last night from a lady in our congregation that I haven't met, but she got my number from one of our Relief Society presidency members. She called to ask if I could take her and her baby to the doctor today. She has apparently hurt her back and can't lift the baby.

I told her that I would do that, and we made a plan for today.

Normally, I welcome the opportunity to serve, especially my neighbors. But I find myself being very protective when I get calls like this too. See, we live backed up to a set of about 4 buildings of four-plexes which, at times, rotate residents faster than I change our family's sheets. Sometimes we get backyard neighbors that we wish would buy a house in our cul-de-sac and stay forever with us. Others, we can't wait to see the moving van arrive.

In the past, maybe because I get to be home during the day and not work (that is, not for a paycheck signed by some faceless corprorate entity--but I digress), I get quite a few calls for help from these neighbors in the apartments. More often than not, they tend to take advantage and even use the system the church has set up to help one another. That is the part that has made me a bit on edge when calls come, and they always do.

If I were really a "GOOD" person, I would just open my arms to help anyone who needed it. In fact, I should be out looking for ways to help. But I don't. I'll probably sit the eternities in hell because I have had such a bad attitude about these apartment neighbors. Perhaps, you good friends could just make a plan now to bring me a diet coke with ice every now an then as I am sure Heaven will have ice and diet coke, and anyone in Heaven will WANT to share with me.

I will take this lady and her baby to the doctor today, but I will have my self-preservation mind set on and when I try to exercise more charity, but I may not like it immediately. Good thing I get to keep trying to get it right. This is one I really struggle with and don't seem to be learning to overcome very quickly.