We had a little boy come in with his mother to get their order. While the mother was shopping for her order, the little boy was looking at and playing with our nativity set. It was a rather larger nativity set and we had set it up on the table where we have church books, church magazines and newspapers. The little boy had rearranged all the figurines in the nativity set so that the people were all in the middle in normal fashion, and the animals were facing away from the people. The animals were facing the little bales of hay that the little boy had put on the outside of the scene. One of the ladies at the Storehouse walked by and looked at his work and asked if he had put the bales of hay there to "keep the animals in". I happened to be walking by at the time and said, "No Kathy, can't you see? It's dinnertime and all the animals are facing that way so they can eat their dinner!" The little boy looked up at me and nodded and smiled. :0)
When the mom had finished her shopping and it was time to go, the little boy asked if he could have the nativity set. This nativity set had been donated to the Storehouse by an ex-Storehouse missionary so we didn't feel like we could give it away (Although if it had been up to me, I would have given it to him). When I told him that it really wasn't mine to give away and that it belonged to the Storehouse he said, "Do you have a picture of this?" All of a sudden I remembered that we had a stack of FRIENDS (church children's magazine) on the table to give away. These were magazines that no one had even colored or written in. I leafed through the stack and found a December issue. On the front of the magazine was a picture of a nativity, inside was a nativity that he could COLOR, and there was more nativity pictures inside. Score!!
When I showed it to him, he was enthralled! He said (in an excited voice), "Yes! That's it!" He was so happy to take that home with him!
Since that day I have had announced in 3 wards for people to bring us their "gently used" FRIEND magazines. We really don't need anything other than that, because people are always bringing us all the other magazines, newspapers, and even church books to give away, but for some reason we get very few FRIEND magazines. Probably because the Mormon kids that get them practically wear them out looking at them. We recently had someone bring in a stack of FRIEND magazines that had no writing or coloring in them either. Now anytime a child comes in with their mom or dad, we offer them a free FRIEND magazine!
2 comments:
WHat a great idea! We are currently collecting books to give to an early reading program in our community. I think the Friend magazines achieve the same goal!
That's a cute story, and it's a good idea. Does he come in often? You might keep an eye out for Nativity sets at yard sales, etc.
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