Welfare Square

So my friend Kim Flood always has these amazing ideas about helping children appreciate what they have. Up at Welfare Square in Salt Lake (on the west side of the freeway at 800 South) they have missionaries that do tours all day (I should specify, until 3:00) that anyone can go and take and learn more about where their fast offerings, donations to the D.I. and humanitarian efforts end up. There is a short movie (called True Religion, it aired between conference sessions a while ago), after which you walk through the Bishop's Storehouse, through the warehouse, the bakery, the cannery, the dairy, the D.I. sorting center and the employment center. We had two cute missionaries who guided our tour and were full of information about which people were employees and which were volunteers (which were most of them!). At the end of the tour we got to sample the cheese they made at the dairy, chocolate milk from the dairy, bread from the bakery as well as jam and honey from the cannery. One of the most impactful things to me was they had a photo of an 8 year old girl from Ethiopia who was starving to death, she had no hair and was very literally skin and bones. The Church helped send a supplemental food to help people in this area begin to be nourished again, and there was a photo of her 6 months later and she looked like a normal, healthy child. There are so many things that we have to be thankful for! To see the organized humanitarian effort that is going on daily is amazing. It was awesome to see the volunteers working together so happily. We asked the kids at the end of the tour what their favorite part was, they said the food. Second favorite? The movie. Someday I'm sure they'll remember this and it may have more of an impact then...