Month: December 2024

A few months ago, we coordinated our little group of missionaries to help with a charity event. Not only was it fun to hang out with a bunch of kids, we felt like it was really valuable to serve in our community. Well, the woman who runs that organization was hosting another event today, and she needed a lot of help. We heard about it a week ago, and Pepper called to ask what we could do to support her. She was surprised; she told us she hadn’t contacted us earlier because she’d heard (mistakenly) that our missionaries aren’t “allowed” to do service work at other churches. Although her organization isn’t affiliated with a particular faith, the event itself would be hosted at a local Christian church. Pepper told her that was categorically false, and we’d be happy to help.

So, as with many of our other service projects, we put out the call. The missionaries all volunteered to help! Some of them had been at the October event, and they were eager to do something similar. We arrived a little early to help with setup. There were dozens of bags of donated clothing and other items that needed to be sorted and laid out for people to “shop” during the event.

When it started, parents showed up and left their kids in the church. They were all given wrapped Christmas gifts, and the parents were able to pick any clothes or other items they needed for themselves or their families. The kids, meanwhile, had two hours of activities ahead. Our job was to “chaperone” them– not so much to keep them out of trouble, but just to provide some support and continuity during the event. My new friend is a fourteen-year-old boy named Kat. (That’s his mom with us.)

Kat and I had a grand time. He told me about high school and football and anime. We frosted cookies and made posters and tie-dyed a t-shirt and threw rubber axes. He loved the activities, and I loved chatting with him through the morning.

After everyone had gone home, we cleaned up and then posed for a group photo. Here are all the missionaries who joined us this morning:

And a few of our trusty young adults came out as well.

We’ve loved having these opportunities to serve, and we hope that community leaders– like the woman running this organization, and the people at the food bank, continue to contact us when they need help. After all, isn’t this what the Lord did during His time on earth?

We do a lot of service work in the community, and much of it is with a local food bank. They have an impressive operation and provide food for thousands of families in need all over the Valley. On Monday, we got a call from the volunteer coordinator: with the Christmas holiday approaching, there was a need to prepare and package more food than usual, and she was having a hard time finding people to help. We told her we’d not only help, but round up a few assistants as well.

Our young adult group was excited to volunteer! We all showed up at the food warehouse yesterday morning and went to work filling boxes. Every box contained juice, rice, beans, peas, and nuts. We set up an assembly line and made quick work of the pallets of warehoused food.

Our hard-working crew of seven managed to pack almost four hundred boxes in two hours. Woo hoo!

Today it was time to deliver all of it. At the distribution points, people drive up in cars and we load their trunks or back seats with food. These boxes we’d packed were only a portion of it; there are also mixed vegetables, potatoes, apples, strawberries, milk, frozen meat, canned goods, pasta, and so on. It’s impressive. This time we asked the missionaries to help, and they answered the call.

It’s awesome to volunteer like this, knowing the work we’re doing in the warehouse and on the street is directly benefitting the people who need help.

Today was the last day of seminary for the semester. We’ve really enjoyed spending our mornings with these ten high-school teens. Sure, six o’clock comes painfully early each day, but they show up with a good attitude (mostly) and we have a good time together.

Now it’s time for a nice two-week break before we start the next semester. Ahh, it’ll be nice to turn off my alarm tonight…

Another six weeks, another transfer finished! We posed with our mission family one last time.

As always, these fine men and women are inspiring to us. They’re dedicated, diligent, hard workers. And they’re also young, goofy, and hilarious. It’s an honor to serve alongside them.

Every week we gather with a handful of young adults in the Valley to have an activity together. ‘Tis the season, so last week as a group we decided to decorate gingerbread houses today. Pepper and I volunteered to buy some g-bread house kits and bring them, but when we looked at the selection at the store, we realized they’re all garbage. The gingerbread doesn’t look at all tasty (although the box says it’s technically edible), and the “frosting” and “candies” included in the kit aren’t anything I’d want to ingest. We made a last-minute decision to decorate Christmas cookies instead.

That meant we had to get to work making cookies! I whipped up a batch of sugar-cookie dough. Then we thought about how many people might attend, and I whipped up a second batch. That’s when I learned that two batches make a lot of sugar cookies!

We rolled out the dough, cut the cookies, baked them, put them on cooling racks, added them to bags, and repeated the process. Again and again. By the end we had four massive bags of cookies!

We hastily made a big bowl of frosting and hustled over to the activity. Everyone seemed excited to do this, and we went to work decorating (and eating).

We’d bought some fun sprinkles, and there were some cool creations!

I’m more of a traditionalist, and my cookies are pretty simple…

We spent almost two hours talking, laughing, and decorating. Even after that, we still had bags of cookies left over. No one complained about taking them home, though.

We’ll call it a success. And now I have a plate full of cookies to give to friends!

My friend Wayland wore an amazing suit to our Christmas party today.

Not only was it completely obnoxious, it even had lights sewn into the fabric so he was constantly blinking. And all for ten bucks!

It reminded me of Richard’s Christmas suit last year. I gotta get one of these!

I haven’t been to New York City yet, but when I go I hope I can get this tourist shirt.

After graduating college, every December I’d sit down and handwrite a few dozen Christmas cards for friends and family. It seemed like a good way to reach out to people I don’t see very often, and a fun tradition. Over the years, the number of people on my list grew. Eventually it wasn’t practical to handwrite everything, so I’d make newsletters or custom cards. They became more elaborate, too, and morphed into crazy, often silly designs. Soon there was a sort of expectation from friends about what we’d send… What wacky card will the Schroeders send this year?

Sometime around 2013, our list passed 200 people.

Last Christmas I ordered 350 cards. We keep accumulating friends!

Even though we’re serving a mission, I felt like it was important to keep the tradition alive. In fact, it seemed even more important because there are some people on my list who don’t really hear from me (or me from them) but once a year. So they wouldn’t even know we were serving a mission! What better way to update them on this big change in our lives? I shifted my creative gears to come up with a design for our annual card.

A postcard seemed appropriate. I modeled it on one of those old-school cards you’d buy at a gift shop.

Oh, and we had to update our list. We’ve met so many great people here: all the missionaries we’ve served with in the Valley, the senior missionaries scattered around San Diego, our young adult group, our seminary class, and of course the friends we’ve met in our wards. By the time we finished our spreadsheet, we’d reached 460 names. Oof.

At this point our process is a well-oiled machine. Designing the card takes the most time– by far– and then it’s all about creating an assembly line to stuff envelopes and label and stamp everything. We finished this evening.

Is an “assembly line” card a little impersonal? Probably. But is it a tradition I think is worth continuing? Definitely.