The Gift of Service

The end of July Cody and I went to Youth Conference to Nauvoo. We were gone from Thursday until late Saturday night. It was really fun to go, but we were really stressed and overwhelmed by the house and it was hard to leave over a weekend when we could get so much done. We experienced proof that when you do what the Lord asks your little sacrifice brings blessings that go above and beyond your little sacrifice.

This is how we left our kitchen when we went to Nauvoo. I was so stressed about it I was even dreaming about it while we were there. When we got home late Saturday night we went to pick up Isaac and Jess from Diantha and Curt's house around midnight. They told us some story that Paul had been out to the house for something and he noticed that the window in the shop door had been broken out (that actually had fallen out before we had left) and he was worried that someone had broken in and he wanted us to stop out there and check on it before we went home. So we stopped out there and saw that everything was fine with the shop and we weren't even going to go in the house, but when we were turning around the head lights went across the back door and there was a big note on it. I told Cody to stop and I went to see what it was. It was a note from our ward.

These pictures are what I saw when I went inside. (It still makes me cry to see these pictures!)

I came out of the house crying and told Cody that he needed to come inside.

This is what we saw when we came in. Our kitchen was nearly finished! Maleah's room was mostly done. They had worked out in the shop on the cabinet doors for the kitchen. They had helped clean all the plaster mess in Jessica's room and helped to strip more wallpaper. One of the sisters cleaned the bathroom that was so nasty I had wondered if I would ever be able to use it. Our laundry room cabinets were even painted. Another one of the sisters had brought her baby and couldn't work inside because of the vapors from the primer so she held her baby in one arm and weeded the flower bed and patio area in the back of the house with her other hand. From what I understand there were people from our ward out here working on our house every day that we were in Nauvoo. Our friends estimated that there were over 100 hours of work (probably more. I think it made up about 2 weeks work for Cody and me) put in during the time that we were gone. One of the nights the priesthood brethren came out. Another night the Relief Society sisters came and on Saturday more people came back to help. There were also people that watched other people's kids to allow them to come out. It was a wonderful service to us from our ward and it's something we will never forget.

Trio and Diantha were the ones that organized everything. They knew what the plan was so Trio had a list of to-do's for each day and people just came out and worked. Diantha spent most of the time out in the shop in the heat and humidity (I guess it was like that in the house too because we didn't run the air conditioning) overseeing the cabinet doors. I can't express what this has meant to Cody and me. I hope our friends and ward members know how much they blessed us.