RED

"This is a state of grace

This is the worth while fight

Love is a ruthless game

Unless you play it good and right

These are the hands of fate

You’re my Achilles heel

This is the golden age of something good

And right and real"

-Taylor Swift

 

Like the danger flags waving in the wind on the beach, like striped candy cane Hershey kisses, like Taylor Swift's latest album (which is A-MAZING), like the furiously blinking light on my blackberry that says I have emails to answer, like the majority of my wardrobe purchases in the past 6 months (a fact I just recently discovered), like the color of my favorite time of the year, like loving hearts, like the stripes that make up our national flag, like Five Guys Burger & Fries, like the Sun coming up over the horizon, like Santa's coat and like the color for passion and A-type personalities, it would appear...that I'm obsessed with RED.
 

Gearing up for November I wanted to dedicate that month to service, promising myself that I'd try to make time for one act of service each week. Then Hurricane Sandy hit, and I was marooned in Florida with 5 of my closest friends for 10 days. NYC was shut down, so while everyone else was figuring out how to get around a city with no public transportation or electricity below 38th Street, I baked to a golden brown on white sandy beaches. I surfed, paddle boarded, rode bikes and played tennis so much that by the end of the 10 days my body could barely get out of bed to catch the sunrise each morning. I quickly forgot about the promise I had made.

 

But God didn't forget. By the time I got back to the city, Mormon Helping Hands and the Manhattan stake began organizing service weekends. Time to bring my yellow shirt out of retirement. Technically our wards were assigned specific days (Saturday or Sunday), but since the YSA wards were always assigned Sunday, I decided to help the work go faster and contribute my time on both days.

For the past month I woke up at 6 AM on Saturday mornings, donned up to 5 layers of clothing and topped it off with my giant yellow shirt. Then I rode the subway an hour to Brooklyn. Then loaded myself on a bus, to get shipped out to the Rockaways.

It looked like the set of a Hollywood "end of the world"-type movie. I swear I saw tanks rolling by (although Doug keeps asking for proof).

My first day volunteering was the worst of them all. I struggled getting out of bed, unsure if I wanted to go when all of my friends were going Sunday. I was one of the last people to arrive on the subway and somehow found myself on a bus with the Chinese branch. No one spoke English. When we loaded off the bus I quickly distanced myself from the Chinese, only to find myself in a group of members from the Spanish branch. Who also didn't speak English. We loaded up on masks and gloves and walked to find our assigned house to work on.

Where would you send a group of Spanish speakers over the age of 60?! Surely not the sand house. I affectionately call it the "sand house," because the Entire house was full of sand from floor to ceiling. Our task was to shovel the sand into buckets and dump those buckets outside the house.

It was grueling, tough work. I was worried about the other members of my group, the buckets of sand were so heavy. I have no idea how my team members managed. I worked feverishly, from 9-4, 7 long hours of shoveling and carrying buckets of sand. My arms ached, the pads of my fingers had blisters forming, and my back felt like it would break in half. Despite the physical exhaustion, it was an emotional high. I picked up some new spanish words, and my team members led us in the Spanish version of "Count Your Many Blessings."

When we started doing hurricane relief, we'd be walking down the street wearing bright yellow vests/shirts and carrying tools. People would stare and sometimes we'd stop to see if they needed help. They seemed unsure of us, By the end of  November, we were local celebrities. "The Mormons are here! The Mormons!" I can't tell you how many times I heard that phrase be exclaimed with such joy from streets we walked down. Every single person we helped was so appreciative- I received countless hugs and words of gratitude. A guy in my stake is a professional videographer, and he made a film from one of our days helping. The film was an overnight hit!! CNN, GMA, Washington Post and countless other media outlets called attention to this film and the work we were doing. I'm posting it here, if you look closely you'll spot me at the end: Hurricane Sandy Helping Hands

In total, we had over 42,000 people help out during this period. We did over 242,000 hours of hurricane relief service. That equals almost 27 years for a single person, work that we did in a month.

"He who gives money gives much. He who gives time gives more. But, he who gives of himself gives all." --President Thomas S. Monson. I could not be more proud of everyone that gave not just their time and money, but themselves. For me, these acts of service make the holidays the most wonderful time of the year!

Merrily yours,
Lo

Made it on CNN during Election Night

 

Harry Potter World!!!