LDS Humanitarian Center: A Humbling Experience

It was announced on Sunday that the church deseperately needed help at the Humanitarian Center. They asked for 8 volunteers in Relief Society and I knew that I had to go!

I am very passionate about service. I think that it would be the coolest thing that when I die and after seeing the most important people in my life, I want to see King Benjamin. I want him to give me a high-five and say "I knew I could count on you! Way to go! Thank you for remembering" and then a small Whoo hoo would come from both of us! (A girl can imagine the experience however she may like, right?)

So when I hear of opportunities, I jump on it! My friend Doris and I drove to the center yesterday afternoon. The gentleman that is in charge announced to us that in the Bishop Storehouse, they usually keep 50 pallets of cleaning kits on hand at all times. These cleaning kits are shipped out all over the world when a disaster hits. They are usually sent with the Hygene kits also. If you would like to see the list of where the kits have gone recently, click here.

They had 0 pallets at the beginning of the week. So there was an emergency to get those cleaning kits made ASAP!!

50 of us walked through the center to the location of where the cleaning kits were to be assembled. I was amazed at all of the stacks of clothing, blankets and did I say clothing that were in the center. When we walked into the large room where we were going to work, there were 7-8 woman standing next to these huge piles of clothes. They were in the center of 6-8 bins surrounding them. They were there sorting clothing. Bless them for that task.

We were instructed to make a huge assembley line of standing at a station and loading our object into the bucket and then passing it down. Easy enough! As we began work, I looked around the room and saw my fellow friends from our Ward and Stake working together for a good cause and I was overwhelmed. I held back the tears as I loaded the garbage sacks as quickly as I could into the buckets and passed them on down. Truly a moment I will never forget!

I am telling you service is awesome, but serving with friends around you is better. I had Brother Bird, Brother Garrett and Sister Purser surrounding me and we laughed and talked as we worked our little rears off. Again, overwhelmed and extremely grateful for the experience to be shared with them.

By the end of the day, we have finished over 40 pallets and we are only required to do 35. We cheered and it was amazing to see the pallets taken away. (Doing the math, each pallet held 48 cleaning kits so I know we easily did 2000 cleaning kits in 3 hours.) A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

My hands were black from the ink of the garbage bag boxes rubbing off on my hands. At first, I didn't want to wash them. They were my trophy of the moment for the service I just did, and I wanted to show Brian. Alas, I did have to drive home, and black handprints on my car would not have been nice to clean up. So sadly, I washed my hands and bid farewell to the Humanitarian Center.

I truly have a testimony of service. It is when we serve that we are most Christlike in our lives. Every time I serve someone, I feel better and I feel of great worth. Everyday should be full of service and helping others and hopefully one day - I will have earned my High-Five!