A Servicing We Go

A couple of months ago I felt this strong need to find ways for our family to increase our efforts to be involved in service opportunities for our community.   I went to http://www.volunteermatch.org/ , I put in a few key words and, bada bing bada boom, I found this wonderful organization.

I was drawn to this organization for many reasons.  One of the main reasons stems from their mission statement which is this :

"Family homelessness is damaging to everyone it touches. Save the Family empowers families to conquer homelessness and achieve life-long independence.

• • •

We envision communities free
from family homelessness."

I love the fact that they are striving to help families to know how to be proactive in the choices they make, enabling them to better understand how they can conquer, as they put it, homelessness and achieve independence.  

They have this program that asks for volunteers to bring in sack lunches, snacks and sack dinners on a daily basis for the families they are helping.  I was drawn to this particular program because it was easy for me to know how I could involve the children in this service.  And this morning we were able to put all the planning into action.

The younger girls helped me make the bread the past couple of weeks.  This morning everyone was able to have a hand in putting together the sack dinners.  Lucy helped with putting the cheese sticks in, Kady the dessert, Sera the carrots, Emma chips, Kady and Lucy sandwiches to dad to put in the bag, Eliza was the cheerleader.  I made 15 peanut butter and jelly, 15 ham and 10 chicken salad.  It was so exciting for me to see the girls be excited to help those who may be struggling temporally right now.  

For scripture study this morning we just read one verse, because I did not take into account how long it would take to put all of the sack dinners together.  Nonetheless it was one that came to my mind quickly, and it fit the mood of the morning.  It is from one of our standard works.  From The Book of Mormon  

Mosiah chapter 2 verse 17 

"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

Whatever struggles we may have as individuals or families, I have found that one of the easiest ways to find a  solution to, or lighten those burdens or struggles is to reach beyond ourselves and help those who may be struggling themselves.  At least, that has been my experience.  

On another note.  I was watching a program this afternoon while little people were still sleeping.  The programs title was family dinner time.  The guest was a lady who apparently is a guru on helping families have  more meaningful dinner time.  As I listened to the host and guest speak, I thought how I have been doing what they were talking about since before I even got married.  I had a very prideful moment.I even called Jared and told him that he married a genius! Here is a link to my post I did a long while ago about meal planning  It is well worth looking at, mostly for the funny movies.  Happy full moon!

p.s.  If anyone is interested in me doing a list of meals we eat here for your own meal planning idea, or even a more detailed approach to how I organize meal planning let me know.