Bingo!

    Monday and Wednesday this week were devoted mostly to orientation for volunteers at the state hospital. It was repeatedly emphasized over and over again that we should protect the privacy and security of the patient population. It was typical mandatory training stuff they needed to pass along. A highlight of our orientation training was learning defensive moves we can employ in case someone tries to attack us. We were told they've never had any of their volunteers get hurt, and they wanted to keep it that way.

    We're starting to conduct weekly group sessions with people who are dealing with addiction issues. They are there voluntarily, so it makes a huge difference in their desire to change and become a better person. The majority of them want to talk about the Bible, so we discuss a different scripture topic each week. We decided to start with the virtues of faith, hope and charity. We also engage them in enjoyable recreational games to help them understand they can still have fun while sober. We played Halloween bingo this week, with candy bars as prizes! They love having us visit.

    We took the bus to church one night so Elder Mundell could use his senior citizen pass, and on the way we met a member of the ward and invited her to church. We feel like that's another way to meet people, engage them in conversation, ask questions and then invite them to learn more.