White Shirt Project

March 25  Wednesday

I woke up this morning to an email from Becky Abplanalp, the mom in North Carolina who came to Brazil to pick up her son from his mission.  She said they would be in Canela around 10:00 a.m. with a suitcase full of white shirts and ties.  We were excited!  Brent Egbert and April McQueen worked hard to gather white shirts to distribute to young men (and big men).  Thank you to everyone who donated and helped this project be a huge success.

Merl and I got ready quickly and were out the door to find a few things to put in a gift bag for her.  I was looking for a few things that now say "Canela" to me.  First, we stopped at the grocery store and got a bag of maracuja toffee and a few packages of our favorite powdered drink made by Tang:  Goiaba, Maracuja, Mango, Lemon/Lime.  Next stop was Daupers for two boxes of our favorite cookies.  While we were on that end of time, we went to an Artisan shop that I like and round a beautiful dish towel - beautiful because it had a hortencia embroidered on it with borders and lace on the ends.  We added a little bunny and two steps of hortencia.

 We rushed home to put the gift together along with a necklace I made and a bookmark Ann made.  We were ready when they pulled up at the gate at 10:30 a.m. 



A large suitcase full of shirts and ties was unloaded into bags on our front room floor.  We visited for about an hour talking about missionary work, things to see and do in the area, miracles that happened along the way to get the shirts to Brazil. . .   Now it is our turn to get to work - sorting, packaging, and labeling the shirts to be distributed to our Branch presidents.

Merl and I went to SF de Paula for piano lessons and Integration night.  When we arrived, we found the Young Women group busy cleaning out cupboards in the hall (sorting donated clothing into manageable stacks) and raking the lawn.  We taught eight lessons before the missionaries came to get the meeting started.  We now have four missionaries assigned to the area:  Elders Gallardo and Alva as one companionship, and Elders T. Santos and Viana as the other companionship.  A lively song of Chamados a Servir (Called to Serve) opened the meeting with another portion of 'Meet the Mormons' shown.  Lots of cookies and juice for refreshments and everyone was out the door by 9:30 p.m. 

When we arrived home, I found the following email from Becky Abplanalp:

"Hello from Brazil, do you recognize these faces?????  We had a great visit with your parents and were able to make that special delivery.  What a huge blessing they must be to so many they come in contact with.  They gave us gifts, yummy local goodies, a beautiful handmade bookmark and a beautiful handmade necklace, which I wore all day, since it matched my outfit perfectly.

Thank you for all your hard work in getting everything collected and sent to us.  We got to reap the reward and see so many faces light up when they saw our goodies, you'd think it was Christmas.  Haha

Here's the totals I promised...

Mission Home:

Dress shirts - 50

Ties - 41

Coats:  Elders 7, Sisters 6

Skirts: 14

 

Egbert's in Canela:

Dress Shirts - 80

Ties - 44

Take care and thanks again!"