The Joy of Serving

We were busy missionaries this week. Suk Harper cooked a whole hog to feed our Camp Casey soldiers as an early Christmas celebration. I peeled 50 pounds of potatoes and diced five pounds of onions plus cutting carrots, shredding four huge cabbages, and peeling five dozen eggs as the cook’s helper. The potato salad and coleslaw were wonderful, made in the true southern style. We served over 200 soldiers on Wednesday.

On Friday we went back to the JSA to do an early Christmas for the soldiers there. We put up more decorations and dressed up a Santa. We set up a table to print photos of the soldiers with Santa and then put them in a small frame they could take to their rooms. There were stockings stuffed with fun things and small canvas bags with more goodies for every soldier. The car dealership gave some kind of swag to every soldier and then there were a host of other gifts that went to almost every soldier. The four largest gifts were 40” and 50” televisions, a laptop computer, and an iPad. The soldiers had a great time as the gifts were raffled. It was just fun to be with them.

Wayne has a soldier who has meet three times with him this week to see if he can improve his score on the math section of the promotion exam. He started foggy on basic multiplication and division and is ready to tackle the tougher story problems. You can tell that it is the teacher having the most fun, but the soldier works for over an hour each time which demonstrates his determination to tackle this barrier to his career.

We now have a schedule for teaching the soldiers as a class. We will have 20 soldiers for three weeks here at Camp Casey in January and again in March and will spend two weeks at the JSA in February working with 15 soldiers there. We’re really looking forward to being back in a classroom again and helping these soldiers move forward in their careers.

We finally turned on our heat to warm our apartment. Our neighbors have kept their units warm enough to keep us warm until now. We have the wife of one of our soldiers coming to stay through the holiday so she can afford to visit her husband. We may not see much of her, but it will give me the incentive to decorate our apartment.

It is wonderful this time of year to not only serve, but watch the joy others feel as they serve. Christ lived his life for us and then he gave up his life for us. It seems only fitting that we find a little time to give to others, too. Our hope to all our friends and family is a very Merry Christmas as we all remember the joy of our Savior’s birth.