Willing Hearts and Helping Hands.

On Thursday night several men from Alkali Creek Ward worked hard to set up all of our tables and chairs in all of our rooms.  We are so grateful for their help--we couldn't have done it without them!

When we arrived early Friday morning to begin preparations for Hearts and Hands I looked at our big, empty gym and wondered if we would have enough donated items and enough sisters to meet our goals.

It wasn't long before our rooms began to fill with donated goods.

All of these boxes came from Hardin Branch.

Hardin has been collecting donations to send to Mongolia, but as postage has gotten so expensive they've been unable to send them.  They donated to Hearts and Hands instead.

Many wards and branches brought bags and bags of finished quilts.

It wasn't long before we had plenty of boxes and sacks to sort through,

and lots of supplies to count.

 We were so thankful for those that came to help.

We are grateful for sisters who set up various rooms

or sorted through clothes for our used clothes section. When you come tomorrow, you can take anything you want from these clothes before they are donated to Family Services.

We have quilts of every color and size.

Many vehicles arrived throughout the day, filled to the top with boxes and sacks of donated goods.

We were amazed at the beautifully handmade hats, scarves and gloves.

We encouraged wards and branches to finished as many quilts in advance as possible.  There were many, many beautiful finished quilts.

We still have several quilts to finish on Saturday.

Monad Ward brought 54 beautiful full size quilts, quilted by long-arm machine and bound by hand.

Many sisters come to spent the afternoon tying quilts.

We had members of other community churches come and donate their expertise.

By the end of today, our formerly empty gym was full of donated goods.

We so appreciate each and every item donated by the wonderful members of our two stakes.  We are grateful for all of the time spent tying quilts and making fleece blankets in advance. We still have hundreds of kits to assemble, dozens of quilts to tie, and hundreds of items to count and sort.  Please join us Saturday, March 18, from 9 am on.  Come enjoy a tasty lunch with us, the fellowship of your sisters and community members, and the joy of serving.