Boxed Service

Every Saturday morning, Elder Peterson meets the Elders at a local grocery store.  I would go with him, but there isn't room for me after he picks up crates of donated food items from the store.  The owner is the sister of a member (used to be his father, but he retired) and she has generously decided to donate all food that is expiring but still, in most cases, edible.  Each week we are given enough to fill the entire back of the Sequoia to the top.  Last week Paul had to make two trips because there was so much, including boxes and boxes of frozen items. The food is brought here to our carport where we divide it up among about 10 families, sometimes more if we have lots of food that week.  Last week we literally took food to half the branch members.  This takes us several hours, and it isn't necessarily a clean activity, so we don't wear our proselyting clothes.  So far the weather has cooperated but I wonder what it will be like when it is 10 below and windy :)

 Last week we had so much frozen food that we went to Walmart and bought a small chest freezer which was on sale. Later in the week, we then gave as much of the frozen stuff away as we could.
  I also made loaves and loaves of banana bread which we distributed to all the Elders in our district at District Meeting, and to members when we stopped to visit.  Sometimes it is a challenge to know what to do with what we are given.  For example, a few weeks ago we were given 40 jars of Cheez Whiz.  Why did the store have so much left over?  Exactly. No one eats that stuff.  We gave some away, ignoring the surprised and unappreciative responses,  and stored some in our little storage unit, hoping that we could put it the boxes when we didn't have as much other food.  Now, though, I think we are going to have to throw some of it away. This is a very "green" community so I felt compelled to recycle the jars. I thought I could soften it up by putting it in hot water--nope.  The difficulty of getting Cheez Whiz out of the jars should be an indication of the lack of its nutritional value. After spending considerable time to clean out just 8 jars, I decided that the environment might have to suffer a little. It will undoubtedly be found in some coming century and be a mystery to all.  However, despite the plague of Cheez Whiz, it feels good to do some service!