Youth Night. Amazing Turnout.

Over 400 youth from the Farr West Poplar Stake showed up at the orchard tonight. An absolutely wonderful turnout. I’m going to compare some numbers from tonight, just 1 night compared to the total turnout of all Stakes for March. Now it’s not a completely fair comparison due to many factors including the time of the day for volunteering, the weather, and the challenge of pruining. So…

For all of March from all 16 stakes the total number of volunteers was a bit over 1000 people. These include those who took time off from work, mothers and fathers who brought their young children, and many who came several times. I’m now on a first name basis with so many of you because of that. And that’s not a bad thing. The pruning was done, done well, and the orchard looks good.

But in one night, tonight, we had 464 people from 1 stake. That’s almost half of the total for all of March. And how having so many was truly a blessing that is hard to express in words. So much more was done than we expected. Grass was planted in areas that really needs grass. Hundreds of trees were painted. This painting protects the trees from some of the herbicides that we spray to control weeds. Raking was done to help us add mulch between the rows. All of it needed. All of it appreciated.

So tonight you all are our heroes. You have lightened our load more than you know. And we appreciate it.

The orchard service missionaries.

PS. Charlie Brown really liked the snow cones.