January 4th 2010 - Our First Day

Today was the beginning of our mission call to serve in the Rexburg Idaho Humanitarian Service Room (HSR). On our first day the purpose of the church's (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) HSR rooms was explained to us. We learned that part of the welfare effort of the church is to have a stable source of goods and materials to be provided in case of disasters throughout the world. The Humanitarian effort is considered to be one of the four primary missions of the church and is intended to be a source of relief for all people anywhere in the world without regard to their religious beliefs.

The primary process to supply needed goods and materials throughout the world under the direction of the Presiding Bishopric of the church. As relief materials become depleted at the Salt Lake City warehouse requests are made to the HSR's for fulfillment. Volunteers and missionaries then come to the room throughout the week and work to fullfill the requests. Most missionaries are senior couples. However, there is no limitation to who can come and provide service.

Another activity of the HSR missionaries is to be a free resource to local community organizations to help meet their demands. This is especially important to these organizations since they are ususally underfunded and have significant workloads to accomplish. I believe the Rexburg HSR services about 28 such organizatons.We will be serving for about 16 hours every week as part of this mission and will be able to live in our own home. Our initial mission is to be for a year. We will use this blog to provide an idea of what our mission is all about and the things we are doing.