Every year around spring/summer time here in CA the church does something called Mormon Helping Hands, the first time I ever heard of it was when we first moved out to Davis so I'm not sure if it's done elsewhere. The stakes/wards split up and do a day of service in the community. It can range from, cleaning up a park, painting/cleaning a public school or in our case food drive.. Our ward was in charge of passing out fliers and collecting food. Danny, Elia and I stood/sat in front of Raley's grocery store asking for donations... I am going to be honest, When Danny told me there was a shift change and we had to go help out for a couple hours I was kind of hesitant, because I am the type of person who when walking into a store would avoid eye contact or even walk to the door on the other side of the store so I wouldn't be asked to donate money for fill in the blank cause. I know, I'm such a horrible person. oh but don't you worry, I was humbled by our 3 hour experience sitting outside Raley's and I am committed to change my ways!!! I was impressed and humbled by how many people would donate food, even if it was one can or box, I was also surprised how many people trusted us by giving us cash and doing the shopping for them. and let me tell you it sure was fun spending $250 of someone elses money! But the one thing I wont forget, was a family (parents and one child) came up to Danny and said "oh great we were planning on doing something like this, what type of food do you need) Danny gave them a flier with a list and then about 30 min later they walked out with a cart FULL of groceries, and I was thinking they were going to hand us one bag out of the many, but instead the pushed the whole cart towards us and said "here you go!" Danny and I looked at each other in amazement. what a great example of service but not only to us but to their son too. So like I said I have changed my ways!! This last week walking into our ghetto wal-mart there was a guy asking for donations and instead of walking to the other door I pulled out some extra change, which wasn't much and gave it to him, and it made me feel good inside (:
Here is a little update on our garden- Danny sure loves his garden and has been working hard outside to set it all up for this year. We have 3 different types of tomatoes, bell peppers, green onions, cucumber, spaghetti squash, lettuces, strawberries and 5 different herbs.....
Elia loves being outside kicking the soccer ball, picking (more like yanking the strawberries to eat them) and she loves, loves her otter pops to help cool down on a hot day
she loves keeping papa company while he is working outside
Elia wearing her dress from Paraguay that Tio Malcolm brought, the same color as the one mami wore when she danced Paraguay in Living Legends.
