Saturday, August 30, 2008

Mormon Meals on Wheels

We Mormons are great when it comes to taking in food to someone who's not feeling well. Or when someone has a baby. Or when someone dies. I've been on the receivership of this as I've been going through chemotherapy. What a welcome relief to know someone is bringing us dinner and that all I have to do is sit down and dish it up!

Sometimes, though, everyone thinks of the same menu. I once took a tuna casserole to a family whose mom was having a difficult pregnancy. I invited myself in and discovered the remains of five tuna casseroles already on the counter. They'd been offered the same meal all week long. And the family didn't even like tuna! I helped out by putting each of the uneaten casseroles down the in-sink-erator and washed the dishes and returned them for her. But, I've often wondered since how many more tuna casseroles showed up at their home...

Sometimes the meals have been just plain funny. One dear lady brought me a green bean casserole - with the can lid included. Extra iron? I loved her the more for it. It lightened my day to know I'm not the only forgetful person on the planet! I've got a friend who enjoys serving up yak and other foreign tidbits. Hmmmmm... Our family was ecstatic over the pizza & rootbeer floats. Seven-layer bean dip and chips. Ice cream cones and a variety of ice creams. Yum! True Saints all!

I'm always amazed at how caring and giving people are. I know how hard it can be to get all or part of a meal to someone else at the exact same time you're supposed to be feeding your own family or getting the kids to/from practices. It's expected that not everything run perfectly.

I myself am guilty of forgetting to take over a main dish on my assigned day twice in the past few months. How embarrassing! When it was our turn to be overlooked, I figured it was our just desserts! Max simply took the lettuce salad that had already arrived and added black beans and cheese and we had an excellent taco salad! (And the main course arrived a couple days later - when it was also VERY much appreciated!)

The bishop in one of our married student wards decided that the whole process was too overwhelming for families going to school and working. He forbade the doling out of meals for the sick. He said that the spouses were perfectly capable of preparing basic dinners. What a concept! It relieved us of "having to serve," but it also took away the blessings we'd been receiving from "getting to serve." And after being so richly blessed by being on the receiving end of things here, I look forward to "getting to serve" again sometime soon!

1 comment:

Ms Renee said...

I hope you weren't meaning ME as the friend who likes to serve up YAK. I'll have you know that you can't get yak here. However, I do know some alpaca farmers.