Saturday, May 3, 2014

Thomas Nailalu an SRSC Volunteer–May 4, 2014

Thomas is our newest volunteer.  Thomas is a slightly “handicapped” young man with a smile that lights up a room.  We first met Thomas when our office was at the Institute.  He came to all the classes and activities and hardly said a word.  He came one day and in the quietest voice I have ever heard asked if we could use another volunteer in the SRS Center.

Thomas is now in charge of getting our daily newspapers and then going through them and making a list of all job postings.  He also has everyone sign in and then makes sure that everyone is registered on LDSJobs.org.  And he is a Facebook king.

A while back he came in and asked if he could wash our car – he wanted to save up enough money to buy a phone.  He did a great job on our car and the Peterson’s van and we told him he should contact all the other senior couples and see if he could wash their vehicles as well.

And a new enterprise was born.  We made him some “buy 5 car washes and get 1 free cards”, and began to explain the finer points of small business to him.  And then he needed supplies, you can only borrow the Institute bucket for so long.  And so Elder Peterson, Elder Jackson, and Thomas split the cost of his supplies 3 ways, and in return Elder P and Elder J got 4 more car washes free.

And with this upfront cash he was able to get that phone he wanted.

This last week we “found” an old drawer insert that no one wanted anymore and cleaned it up and put it under our reception desk so we would have a place to store reception supplies.  And then discovered that Thomas’ bucket and supplies fit nicely into the bottom drawer.  Yah, now he doesn’t have to carry them home and back everyday.

And to make the week even better the Service Center discovered what a good job he does on the cars and now he has a pretty good little business going.  Along the way he has had lessons on tithing paying, saving money, and paying for your supplies.  Thomas is soaking it all up, just like one of his car wash sponges.

We may have to get a new office volunteer if he gets much busier.  And that will make us all happy, especially Thomas.

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