Angel Gowns

Madison Memorial Hospital has had the Humanitarian Room make several things for them. Recently they asked us to make these little gowns and blankets. Madison Memorial has more births than any other hospital in Idaho, therefore they have more stillborns. They asked us to make little (they look like doll gowns they are so small) gowns and blanket holders so they could put the stillborn babies in them for the parents to hold before the bodies are sent away. We decided to call them Angel Gowns. We make them in girl and boy colors.

Car Trouble

We were delivering meals on Thursday and were about halfway through the route when steam started coming out from under the hood. We pulled over and Glenn checked under the hood and couldn’t find anything wrong. We decided to try and get back to the Senior Center and take our car the rest of the route. Thankfully, we made it back with out the car catching on fire and got the rest of the meals delivered. The car is now in the shop for repairs. I know the Lord was watching out for us, there was so much steam coming out that I thought there would be a car fire.

Blizzard hits Rexburg

The week of Thanksgiving a blizzard hit Rexburg. The blowing snow made it hard to see, the roads were closed all around Rexburg. The Senior Center and Humanitarian Center were both closed all week, we could not deliver meals to anyone.

Packing School Kits - Hard Work

We received an order from Salt Lake for 4 pallets of school kits (1920 kits). There was a great deal of confusion regarding what exactly the structure of the back pack would be. Would it be the old or the new style? Should we unpack a pallet full of old style backpacks or what? Anyway, we started in a panic to cut and sew the new style backs with cords for straps. We also ordered a large supply of materials including backpacks from Salt Lake so we could start packing them. Guess what, when the order arrived we found the old style bag was just fine. In order then to fill the order I set up an assembly line and we got to work. As of this entry we had completed about 1200 kits of the 1920 needed.

Jason Ricks ready to go to work
Items to be placed in the backpack include - 450 sheets of paper in spiral notebooks, 4 pencils, an eraser, a pair of sissors, a pencil sharpener, a box of colored pencils, and a ruler. We also add a card with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints spelled out in about 10 different languages.


A completed pallet of 480 school kits. (very heavy)
The pallet is then wrapped with cellophane and delivered to the trailer for shipment.

Stake President

On Friday night we got a phone call from the Stake President's Secretary asking both of us to come to the President's office Sunday morning at 8:45am. We had no idea what this could be about but were a little nervous. Of course we thought of many things it could be about and that made us even more nervous. Needless to say we had a hard time sleeping Friday and Saturday night. I thought it would be a new church calling for Glenn and was very worried that it might mean we would need to be released from our mission, which we both love very much.

Well, we went this morning and it was a new calling for Glenn and thankfully we can still do our mission. Glenn has been called to be on the Rexburg Stake High Council. He will be assigned to our ward. This means he will have several meetings on Sunday and have to speak at different wards every few months. I know he will do an excellent job and give new insight to the High Council meetings. I am looking forward to going with him to the different wards when he has to speak. Please remember him in your prayers because he is quite anxious about this new responsibilty. He told me that he is amazed that the Lord continues to give him new opportunities to try to get things right and continue to grow in his understanding of the Gospel.

He was sustained today in stake conference and will be set apart next Sunday after their weekly 6 am meeting.

Meals On Wheels

This is a house that we deliver to, the lady lives in the back apartment. Her sister and brother-in-law live in the front part of the house. The brother-in-law was a mail carrier. We got a laugh out of his mail box. The high mailbox is for junk mail.

We really love delivering the Meals on Wheels. We do the city route here in Rexburg. We deliver to approximately 32 residents. They are mostly older people. Some are quite friendly, some we never see, some are handicaped, and all benefit for having the meals delivered. The Senior Center here in Rexburg plans and cooks the meals. We come to the Center at 10:00 am (on Monday and Wednesday) to help sack up the cold part of the meals, then we load the meals and start our delivery about 10:30, we are finished around 12:00-noon.

The Senior Center received a letter from one of the couples we deliver to, in the letter she explained that her husband has Alzheimers and had gotten really depressed and had stopped eating. She was referred to the Senior Center and they started taking in meals. This has really helped the husband, he is now eating and looks forward to the lunch delivery everyday. He thinks it is coming from a restaurant. He always invites us in and asked if we couldn't stay for a while.

I know that many of these older people look forward to the meals coming just because they will have contact with someone. We have one man that as we pull up to the apartment complex he is sitting at his window waiting for us. He meets us in the hall by his apartment, I wonder if we are the only contact he has with others. It saddens me that these old people are so lonely but glad we can make their day a little brighter. If you know of an older person that live alone near you, bake them some cookies or just go visit them!

We feel truly blessed to serve in this mission, we receive a newsletter from Salt Lake City every month telling us where the shipments have gone for the last month. In April shipments went to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cape Verde, Chile, Guyana, Moldova, Palestinian Territory, United States and Uzbekistan.

We have a DVD that we show groups who come in to help in the evenings (we work Wednesday evenings), it tells that newborn babies are being sent home from hospitals with newspapers wrap around them as a blanket. It warms my heart when we put together the newborn kits knowing that some little babies somewhere in the world will have a nice new blanket to be wrapped in.

Another Week

Every Wednesday night is our night to supervise groups that have signed up to come in and work for 1 1/2 hours. I am amazed how many of the groups are young people from the college that want to do service for someone else. We show them a short movie about the church and humanitarian service and then they go to work.

This group is from BYUI.
These girls are going through boxes of donations from WalMart
They are making the newborn hats

More quilting

This is a board in the Humanitarian Service Room showing all the things we make. Puppets, quilts, dolls, doll clothes, books.

Elder Bovie holding a quilt someone did at home and brought in

Someone brought in these cute puppets (several of each puppet), the cars are painted in the HSR

Elder Ballard paints these cars and puts on the wheels, he also paints stacking block sets

This is Elder Ballard's painting area

Another goodbye breakfast, this time for Elder & Sister Rese

This group is a Sociology group from BYUI

There was 13 in the group and they really accomplished a lot

The girl in the corner is from our ward in Bellevue, Washington

I sew the quilts together, this is an industrial machine that I use. It goes very fast!

I sewed these quilts, 1 full size, 2 twins (one was put on frame for the tying) and 4 crib quilts. They are now ready to be tied, then boxed up to go to Salt Lake City

More adventures

These two come in every week to help
One of Glenn's jobs is to palletize up the boxes to be sent to Salt Lake
The batting for the quilts come in big rolls then we cut to the sizes we need
This young man comes in twice a week to help. He has been making newborn hats to go in the newborn kits.

Sister Bovie is sewing a quilt top

Sister Sharlene is also making a quilt top

WalMart sends over all their returns and items that don't sell when the seasons change. We remove all price tags and any Walmart markings. This day we received 29 boxes of mostly hats, gloves and scarves. All new items are sent to Salt Lake for future distributions.

These are hygiene kits that a group put together, we then package and ship to Salt Lake. The kits have toothpase, 4 toothbrush, 2 combs, 2 bars of soap, washcloths and 2 hand towels.

Newborn kits that a group brought in. The kits have 1 blankets, 1 pair of booties, 4 cloth diapers, 4 diaper pins, 1 baby gown, 2 bars of baby soap and hat.

Elder Bovie packaging up things ready to go to Salt Lake

This group (13 total) came in from a BYUI family ward Elders' Quorum.

more of the BYUI group

OOne couple with the group had this cute baby, he didn't let me hold him for very long.

Brother & Sister Southwick stopped by. They are over all the service missionaries in Rexburg.

Last two weeks

Last week Sister Buhrmester left me on my own to do the meals on wheels. Monday was not too bad but Wednesday wore me out. I'm glad she is back.

Last Wednesday night four sisters from the Rexburg Central Stake came in and worked on quilts and rolled yarn.

This week everything is back to normal and I am very happy to have my sweetheart back. They sure did miss her running the sewing machine putting quilts together in the Humanitarian Service Room. Last night we hosted a couple of young men (Priests) and their leaders from the Hibbard Ward. We had a lot of things lined up for them to do but all they wanted to do was tie the quilt we had set up. The five of them completed about one half of the job. They seemed to have a great time. They were thinking that they would challenge the Young Women to a quilt tying contest. I wonder if they really will.

Our First Group Activity

Quilts and School Kits all set up for the nights activity

Sisters from St. Anthony working on projects

A very speedy quilt tying Sister almost tied one twin quilt in
a hour and a half. She didn't want to quit.

Cutting out squares for quilts.

The Humanitarian Service Room is open for group activities from 6:30pm - to 8:00pm Tuesday thru Thursday. Sister Buhrmester and I are responsible for groups that want to come in on Wednesday night. This was our first opportunity to have a group. Nine sisters came in from St. Anthony (about 10 miles up the road). After a safety briefing and prayer we showed them a film about how Humanitarian Service works in the church. Then they got to work. They were quite noisy and laughed and had a great time. (It reminded me of my mom's monthly bridge club meetings.) We packed 102 school kits and an untold number of quilt squares were cut out. One sister forgot to put the pencil sharpener in the school bags of about half of the ones she did so we had to open up the sealed boxes and correct the problem. I should have known better than to trust that things would go perfectly. Anyway, we finished off the pallet for Salt Lake and all seemed to have a great time. We had to get out of the building at 8pm sharp when the DI area closed. The sisters were all headed to Dairy Queen after their activity.

Fifth Week

A farewell breakfast for Elder and Sister Davis and Sister Erickson.

Their mission is completed.

Fourth Week

Delivery to Harold Hill (Remember the "Music Man")

Unfortunately this man can not hear.
We always hope this is shoveled because the ramp in the
back is fairly steep.

3rd Week events

Today was our first day to deliver meals on wheels by ourselves. We did OK, I think. It took two hours starting with assembly of the lunches and then delivery. The old Caddy pulled a trick on me. I set the emergency brake to get out and when I tried to release it it wouldn't give. I tried and tried but no luck. I thought we were doomed with almost all the lunches left to deliver. I called Dave for help. He called back and said that the mechanic was not available to come but that he had said a prayer that all would be ok. Guess what, I reached down in front the the brake pedal and found an emergency release tucked up under the dash. The brake pedal mechanism snapped back and stung my hand but we were free to go again. So we did.

I'm thinking Dave's little prayer may have had something to do with my discovery of the emergency release.

Second Weeks Activity

At the beginning of each day we have a spiritual thought and a prayer.





On this day we received several bags full of cut out school bags

that we had to orgainize and box up for shipment back to Salt Lake.

They will then be sent to another location to be sewn together.

Sister Buhrmester working on tying a quilt

At 10am we reported to the Senior Center to

help get the Meals on Wheels lunches ready

Sister Buhrmester waiting at the Senior Center

for instructions

This is the Meals on Wheels director and

Sister Buhrmester at a home where weare delivering

a lunch. The old Caddy was donated by someone to use.