it happens every wednesday.

miss jen and i volunteered (yes, we volunteered. this was NOT payment against a debt to society) at the deseret mill in layton this week. utahns - it's the big white mill on the west side of i-15. they make flour there... lots and lots of flour. and, because of the economy... the need for food is high... so the mill is working overtime.... and needs more cleaning...

job duties included dusting. and sweeping. and then more dusting and sweeping. from the top of the building down. flour dust everywhere. EVERYWHERE. grit-in-your-chapstick kind of everywhere. in the end, we ended up with a sandbox size pile of semi-refined flour dust.

it was comical for a thousand reasons. while the other volunteers were thinking thoughts and singing songs like "when you're helping, you're happy" and "whistle while you work", jen and i were thinking, "seriously? we're cleaning the mill?" and "this MUST be blogged"...

... and so, i snuck my camera in to capture the event that was the cleaning of the the mill.

jen. aubry. cleaning. covered. head to toe. in flour.

comical point #1. the same conversation was had like 16 times that night.

volunteer: "how often do people do this?"
service missionary: "it happens every wednesday"

or

volunteer: "how long has this mill been around?"

service missionary: "i wish i had an answer for you, but i don't. this is the only mill the church owns, and they bought it from the original owner in 1942.... yada yada yada."

or

volunteer: "hey, i could swear i already swept this spot..."

or

service missionary: "the mill's running 24 hours a day."

comical point #2: hot pipes.

once we got our dusting tools, we quickly retreated to the far back corner of the mill to get started. easier to laugh at ourselves there. we started near the "hot pipes". it didn't mean much to us until the vent kicked on and blew a 200 degree tornado-like wind in our directions.

sweet lovin' those pipes were hot.

comical point #3: aubry. jen. cleaning. head to toe. covered in flour. on our hands and knees.

the very idea of it is comical. i'm sure if there had to be any sort of audition process, we wouldn't have made the cut. but, alas... that's why they call it a "volunteer".

proof that we REALLY did get down on our hands and knees to clean. or, at least... for the photo opp...

mmmm... i think i'm going to go home and bake a loaf of bread...

oh... and, jen and i showed up wearing exactly the same thing. (1) jeans that cost too much to wear to a mill cleaning assignment. (2) a white thermal tee (wish i got the memo about the hot pipes...) under a (3) blue t-shirt. we must be best friends.