Community Service

We have had plenty of down time on our mission.  Unlike regular Elders, we do not knock doors and/or beat the bushes for someone to teach.   Most of our visiting happens at night.  Senior couples are encouraged to find some volunteer work in the community to keep themselves busy and to put a positive face on the church.  I am very grateful to have been involved in serving in this way – it has been a fun diversion from the frustrations of not having enough to do sometimes.  Our first opportunity for service was the Heisey Historical Museum which is an old home along the waterfront that now serves as the headquarters of the Lock Haven Historical Society.  School groups and the occasional history buff come through for tours.  Elder Abbott helped the grounds keeper and I did some cleaning inside on a weekly basis.   We helped with a charity race which I blogged about many months ago.  Due to budget cuts and mismanagement, the Heisey closed for restructuring, and we were forced to look for something else.  Another museum in town is the Piper Aircraft Museum which was glad to have us to help with some projects: Elder A was asked to come up with a user-friendly brochure for the tourists to read about the airplanes on display, and I got the tedious job of documenting 900 old drawings and layouts accumulated over the past 80 years.  We got to help with the annual “Fly in” which was a neat experience.

The best community service in my opinion was our work at the Millbrook Playhouse.  The Millbrook Theatre has been doing musicals here every summer for almost 75 years.  The theatre is an old barn that has been redesigned with two theatres.  Professional actors come clear to central PA to perform, and all costumes, set design, many actors and behind the scenes crew are young interns learning the ropes in theatre.  We were pleasantly surprised at how talented these young kids are and how polished and professional each of the 8 shows were.   I had the opportunity to help sew costumes for many of the productions, and we got to usher for the Friday night performances and stay for the show.

We also found that wherever we traveled around the state, we often had a chance to talk about the church.  We always wear our name tags and that often generated some conversation.  Community service is generally a fun experience and I hope to do something along that line when the mission is over.  I am open for suggestions!