A Great Sunday

     This picture has nothing to do with today, but I wanted to put a picture of something on here :0).  It is me waiting for our turn to talk to the new soldiers, so we can identify the LDS ones.  I think I mentioned before that we did not wear our name tags on the base--now we do.  We talked with the chaplains about it and asked permission to do so.  Elder Elkins felt that we should ask, and we have a pretty good relationship with most of them.  The response was, "I don't know why not, that's who you are!"  So for now, that works.  Chaplains get transferred, just as all military people, so it could be different later on.

    

     This week-end is a holiday, so many soldiers get passes and go other places for a couple days.  So I had the dilemma again of how many to plan for lunch.  We can have anywhere from 1 to 10 soldiers, on any given Sunday, with a few support people.  Because of the holiday week-end, I was temped to make a smaller amount, but felt that would be foolish - 'cause you never know!  So I made a normal sized meal of 3 large pans of Shepherd Pie, homemade bread, chocolate chip cookies, and fresh fruits.  We have never eaten more than 2-3 loaves of bread at one meal, but I took 4 just in case.

     We had 12 soldiers, and a family that came to hear their dad (a local bishop) speak, plus a couple other visitors.  Whoa!  28 people in attendance.  I was starting to panic, but realized that some of the visitors wouldn't be staying for lunch.

     The soldiers loved the shepherd pie (hamburger with onions, mixed veggies, mushroom soup, mashed potatoes on top with a little melted cheese).  They took seconds till the last spoonful was scraped from the 3 pans.  Of the 4 loaves of bread, there was less than 1/2 loaf left, and all of the butter and jam were gone!  They kept eating the bread even when that stuff was gone.  They all seemed very satisfied.

     So you never know.  People ask me how I decide how much food to fix.  I tell them that I make an amount that feels right, then pray over it!  We have never run out, but sometimes we have leftovers to take home.

     We are getting excited about our next trip to DC in March.  We have a pretty good list of soldiers already, who want to go.  Last week we told one of our new faithful soldiers to invite his non-member battle buddies.  He said that he would tell them that they had to attend church in order to get their names on the list.  I said, "They don't have to", and he said, "That's OK, I'm going to tell them that anyway."  True to his word, he had 2 non-members with him today.  Good job Soldier "A".