Adventures in Service

When I woke up Friday morning I had no idea what I was in for that day. It started out pretty normal with me and Marie making some visits to sisters in our ward that we like to check up on. We stopped in on one of them unannounced and found that she was in some need of moving some things around her home because it was in the process of being winterized. It feels really good to be an answer to someones prayer. After about an hour of moving things around I headed home and decided that the dogs could really use a walk. Yeah, pretty much not a good idea. The problem is that the 2 of them together weigh over 200 lbs. That is a ton of weight for me to try and control. Wouldn't you know that someone else thought that walking their dogs was also a good idea at 2 in the afternoon. I lost some skin on my hand from the leash and went stomping down the road trying to put the brakes on the dogs. I was successful in keeping them away from the other dogs but my toes were not very forgiving of my situation. There was some pretty severe pain involved and I wasn't sure how I was going to walk back home. I persevered and made it home where I promptly threw myself on my bed in a dramatic fit of tears and depression.

I was just recovering from my pity party when I got a phone call. Why, oh why did I answer the phone? By this time it was just about 5 and I was trying to figure out dinner plans. On the other end of the phone was a missionary from the southern part of town. When I say southern it means gang central. This missionary needs a favor from me. Oh goodie, can't wait to hear what this is gonna be! Could I really perform 2 good deeds in one day? I'm not sure. That would definitely ruin my heartless image that I try desperately to keep up. :) He was putting a lady on the train and wanted me to pick her up and take her to this place which has the word "house" on the end of it. So he wanted me to take her to some sort of shelter and I wasn't sure what kind but he assured me that she knew how to get there. I was pretty annoyed that he was asking this of me, but after clarifying that all I had to do was pick her up at the train station at 6 and deliver her to this "house" which she knew how to get to I agreed. Ok, fine. I will do it. So, I called up hubs and told him that he was going with me so he better high tail it on home. :)

This dear sweet elder had given this cellphoneless woman my last name and my cell phone number in case there were problems with the pick up. What could possibly go wrong????? She arrived 10 minutes early and had someone with a cell phone call me and I told her to hold tight I was 3 minutes from there. Did she hold tight? I guess she doesn't know the hiking rule of getting lost. Stay put!!!! We got there and she wasn't on the lower level. So, I climbed the 3 story flight of stairs with my injured feet to the platform to look for her. At this same time Nate got another call from a stranger saying that she was now at another location in the hopes of getting her closer to us. Closer than 3 minutes? I am now pretty upset with the missionaries for getting me into this mess. OK, we will be right there. We arrive at the new location and she has managed to bum a cigarette off someone and she is also drunk. Do you think she knows how to get to this place? Nope!!!! Luckily I had with me my trusty ipad and did some surfing, called the place and....... you have to have and interview to get in and they don't disclose the location of the place because it is a shelter for abused women so no one can know where it is AND there is no avail beds so she can't go there. Holy Crap! Now what?

To keep this from being too long I will just give the highlights from here. I needed some time to think so we took her to get some food while I got some referrals from the place that rejected us. We spent a lot of time in the truck together and she said a lot of crazy things and I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or something else. Probably both. I kept calling places while we drove around and listened to this woman's story. I finally found a place that sure enough also needed an interview so while the woman was telling the lady her story of abuse I looked up the location of this place. It was in a small town an hour and a half from where we picked her up at the train station. The woman ended up getting too upset and I had to finish out the interview and we just kept driving hoping that she would be accepted. Thank goodness she was and we met at an agreed upon location for her to be picked up. I have never been so glad to see a complete stranger in my life. I gave the woman from the shelter a hug and expressed my gratitude for having room for this woman that I had just met. I gave our new friend a hug, wished her luck and said good-bye.

We were starving by this point. I was still too traumatized by this experience to stop in that town for food. Talk about ill equipped to handle a situation like that. When we got closer to home we were finally ready to stop and get a sandwich but couldn't eat in the restaurant. It was freezing in there because the air was on and so were all the fans, so we took our food out to the truck to eat. We just sat there looking at each other with a "what the heck just happened" look on our faces trying to figure out the point of that 3 hour tour. Here is what I came up with. I should never indulge in self pity again! Look where it got me. lol Another point could be this; she met this abusive meth dealing gang member when she was 12 years old and she is now in her 30's. Her cousins are this guys best friends and her family is done with all the trouble. There really is no foreseeable future or hope for this woman or her children. She has nowhere to go and no support. Which means that when she is done with her stay at the shelter she will go back to the abuse. Decisions you make when you are 12 can deeply affect the rest of your life. Choices that you make matter and they set the course!!! I heard this once many years ago and it has stuck with me ever since "when we die our lives add up to the sum total of all the decisions we ever made"