My day at work yesterday

Yesterday, I volunteered to work a shift at our local church grain elevator. Yes, that’s right; the LDS church actually owns about 25 grain elevators in various places. The grain stored there is an important part of our humanitarian assistance / welfare program , which even our detractors admit does a lot of good. Anyway, the elevator here is actually in Latty, Ohio, about 80 miles away. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. My friend Chris and I drove out, signed in, and started working. I had hoped to get to pressure-wash their diesel switch engine, but the super diesel-powered high-temperature pressure washer was missing a fitting, so instead we went down in the conveyor area and started stripping paint off the various pipes, enclosures, and other stuff. While we were there, a total of about 20 grain trucks came to deliver; at an average 800 bushels apiece, that’s 16,000 bushels, or about 1.3% of the elevator’s total capacity. We could hear the grain shushing by on the conveyors as we worked. A couple of other folks from our ward were doing other work, including clearing brush and cutting grass.
Why is all this necessary? There’s one full-time employee at the elevator, and all of the rest of the work (e.g. most of the maintenance) is done by volunteers. I think that’s pretty neat, and it definitely made for a nice change of pace from my regular job. As a bonus, even small acts of service are worthwhile.