Because I Have Been Given Much . . .

A friend at church told me about a refugee village in Afghanistan where many children died due to the unseasonably cold winter and lack of warm clothing and blankets. I spent that night reflecting again and again on them, unable to wait to collect blankets and clothing to send. My friend collected four large boxes worth of items to send to these refugee villages. Then we found out that there were friends who didn't get the email with the instructions in time to donate. We started another collection of donations, but this time my friend was out of town and asked me to head it up.

Oh. My. Goodness. Three large boxes and 7 medium boxes. Full. Completely full of blankets, clothing, shoes, socks, hats, gloves, scarves, and anything else that these fabulous women dropped off to my house. Money for shipping costs has poured in.

One friend told her son that children in Afghanistan were freezing and didn't have any blankets. You want to know what her two boys did? They walked right into their bedroom and stripped their beds of their blankets, bringing them and a stuffed animal to me.

There was actually more than this. I got about 4 more large donations before taking it to the post office.

Lincoln helping with the boxes.

Megan brought me her favorite blanket. It's been her favorite since she was very small. It was very hard for her to give it up, but she really wanted to be a part of this.

Today another friend met me at the post office to help me send the boxes off. As we were finishing the last of the taping a woman came up to us and said she had to ask what we were doing. Without even waiting for a complete explanation, she whipped out her checkbook and started writing. "I have to help you with shipping. What's your name? Can I just write you a personal check?" People, this woman wrote me a $100 check. That was almost half of the shipping cost right there. This random woman I've never met heard a snippet of our story and helped us do something that was financially difficult for us.

I've been in shock all day. So many people, my friends, friends of friends, and a woman I've never met and will probably never see again have come together to try to help people none of us will ever meet half a world away.


This whole experience has helped my testimony of Relief Society as an organization. This is what it was organized for. This is what God wants us to do.