Donations by Latter-Day Saint Charities

I often like to go exploring the ship and am always finding new places that I have not been. This week Kaye and I were wandering the ship and we found pallets and pallets of boxes donated by Latter-day Saint Charities. They were labeled hygiene kits, school kits, surgical supplies, medical supplies. We found these pallets full of boxes on 2 different floors. They sported the same logo as we have on our shirts.

Donated Pallets of Supplies by Latter-Day Saint Charities

It was especially cool to see the boxes labeled hygiene kits and school kits as I have personally been involved in creating these kits. I felt a touch of home as we saw these. To be a part of a experience that we are able to share these items, that are lovingly put together by LDS members back in the states, is pretty cool. So keep serving and get involved. Know that these kits are being put to use and are appreciated by the Indonesian people. I worked the Scullery again tonight and I worked along side one of the supply officers. He told me that the Pacific Partnership had a finite budget and that it was running out of certain medical supplies and then the LDS church stood up and said “What do you need?” and they filled the gaps by sending more supplies to the Mercy. He said it was amazing the amount of supplies that they had donated by them. He was very impressed and complimentary of the LDS church.

I was able to visit the Optometry lab and got a great tour of how they were making glasses. They cut all their own lenses and have glasses of many strengths all done when the go ashore to do MedCaps. They have given out thousands of pairs of glasses on this excursion, 6,000 were given out in Ternate alone. From distance lenses to reading glasses. That 's a lot of lenses to cut! The sailor working there picked up a really thick lens and let us hold it up to look through and you could see a whole person's face in this small lens. It reminded me that life is all about perspective. It's our choice how we view life. I have found it interesting that some people may grumble or complaine about life, but in the end if we keep a proper perspective and keep in mind the big picture then our lives can be a lot better. I try to remember this each night as I crawl into my miniscule bunk to go to sleep. It's all about the experience and complaining about my bed won't make it any bigger or fluffier so I just do my best to roll over without hitting the wall or falling off and go to sleep!