"Warrior Days" at Fort Polk

When today's events were unfolding I had so much energy and excitement and wish I could've captured everything as it happened. Now I drop dead tired after leaving this morning at 7, closing the office at 5, going to Walmart & Sam's Club, having dinner and chopping chicken. It's now 8:45 and I can't even read my own notes. So I really hope that the message of today's little miracle comes across!

Brother and Sister Arave are a senior couple assigned to serve at Fort Polk, which is in Leesville and a 2 1/2 hour drive from Baton Rouge. Sister Arave called sometime before noon. Who knows what time it was. I never look at the clock! I could hear the excitement in her voice. The Church has been asked to participate in the "Warrior Days" on Fort Polk next Friday. One of the activities at this event is a sharing of religious information. The Army puts up a huge tent for different religions to give out whatever they choose to share. Traditionally it's always been Catholics and Protestants. Today the head Chaplain invited the Arave's to join with the other churches. They were told that they'd need to have at least 100 "bags" to handout, so Sister Arave called me to see if I had any suggestions as to what to include. My mind was racing trying to think of what the best things would be. We came up with a few ideas but decided to think about it and talk to a few other people.  Of course the best person to speak to would be President Wall, whose at a conference this weekend. I just didn't think it was a good idea to call him.

About 1/2 hour later Sister A and I spoke again and were developing a plan. The problem is that we don't have enough supplies in the office to assemble that many bags. And we could never get things here that quickly from the distribution center without incurring huge costs. We hung up again, still undecided, and it wasn't 5 minutes before who should call? He was in between classes and had a quick question which I actually could answer for him! Then I made super quick explanation of "Warrior Days" and asked for his help. I knew he'd be ecstatic, and he was. Here's what he said: "OK, Book of Mormon, Restoration DVD and My Family and have it overnighted! Gotta go. (In a whisper) Next class is starting." I quickly figured out that we could actually do it without overnighting. We'd just received a shipment from Distribution today with 100 of the DVDs we needed. Monday our Book of Mormon order came in. (20 cases/40 books each) And we had 200 copies of "My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together" that I'd tucked away in the back. (President Wall is working on a pilot plan with one of the stakes to incorporate family history with missionary work.) These are the wonderful new family history booklets that are a great way to get people started on their four generations, including places for your family tree, stories and photos.

Marc has to go to Marksville next week so he'll take all the cases and meet in Alexandria. The A's are thrilled that this has all come together so perfectly. It always does when the Lord is in charge! Some other time I'll share the A's story on how they actually came to be invited to participate.