happiness often feels like exhaustion

about 6 months ago i was called as the 2nd counselor in our stake relief society presidency. i know, i was pretty surprised, too. clearly, the lilburn, georgia stake has a labor shortage. 

as a presidency, we've talked to a lot of the sisters and we came to the consensus that the sisters want to do service and to socialize. we were thrilled that so many sisters wanted to be an active voice of service in our community. consequently, for our relief society birthday activity, we planned on each ward planning their own smaller service projects and then we planned 2 larger service projects on the stake level. the primary did a sticker drive for a local children's hospital and the stake relief society organized a clothing drive. we contacted a local women's shelter and they said they had a need for job interview outfits for women trying to get back on their feet after an abusive relationships or homelessness. we set our goal at 100 dresses, or 100 interview appropriate items. we also planned a big breakfast to meet the socializing needs of the sisters. 

 this is carol and koleen, our secretary and president. they are gems that i am lucky to work with.

i was put in charge of food, which i secretly dread, but i had lots of help and good input from the ward catering expert. we did 3 varieties of costco danishes and we had a build your own parfait section. also, because we had an interest in food for keto diet adherents, carol volunteered to make 30 lbs of bacon and bunch of no carb egg muffins. interestingly enough, none of the keto adherents showed up to the actual activity. this is why i don't take requests. but everything worked out really well, otherwise.

scarlett, danishes and me: a love story.

 scarlett was actually super helpful. i feel we've come to an age crossroads. a child that is more useful than not and requires little supervision. she worked all 6 hours we were at the chapel without complaining. she actually may have even said she liked it.

we had a pretty good turnout for having such a geographically spread out stake. reminds me a bit of the glorious days of my youth when the kansas city stake was 2 hours wide. we're not quite that big, but it's still difficult to convince people to drive 30+ minutes to a saturday morning activity.

i particularly love this table here. these sisters are in one of our spanish branches. we visited their branch recently and they are the most united, loving, loyal and service-minded sisters. i'm glad we are on the same team. i have much to learn from them. riverside unido!

scarlett and me and my visiting teacher, sharon. she comes every month without fail. she's almost 70 but looks 50. nothing is fair. i'm almost 38 and look 99. sleep is eluding me at this stage in life. 

we had everyone bring their donation and tag it with a short message and their name so that the recipients would feel love and support from afar. then we placed each item in dry cleaning bags so they would feel crisp and polished. i think next year i'll bring my portable steamer to touch up a few of the items for an extra va va voom. 

 

we ended up collecting over 150 items! it was a huge success. happiness often feels like exhaustion. i still have some reject items i have to drop off at goodwill. we had so many generous offerings and then we got a bunch of unwearable or weird stuff. we accepted everything but not everyone understood, despite our repeated requests, that we weren't passing along stained things or worn out, ratty blood drive t shirts or otherwise unwearable clothes. we were donating dignity to break a poverty cycle, not reinforcing their distressed circumstances. someone even brought an old bassinet that's now sitting in my garage. i had to convince athena blythe was not a new toy or an familial announcement. i'm hoping that it will find the exact person who needs it. maybe it's random appearance at the activity was all part of Heavenly Father's plan to get it to whoever needed to find it at my goodwill. that's how i'll look at it. i like being a participant in positivism. no coincidences, right?

the spirit of God like a fire is burning!!!