Oklahoma City missionaries serve food bank to Light the World

Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took part in a large service project during their two-day mission conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, this month to benefit the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

The missionaries met at a meetinghouse by the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple on Dec. 17-18, where they also worshipped and served in the house of the Lord.

Oklahoma Oklahoma City Mission leaders, President Ross N. Hugues and Sister Leslie Hugues, wanted to incorporate temple worship, classes and a service project into the conference, which came during the month of the Church’s Light the World initiative to serve as Jesus Christ served.

President Hugues said it was a blessing and a sweet experience to see the missionaries bless others on both sides of the veil.

“They served joyfully as they performed ordinances in the temple for those who have passed on,” he said. “They then emerged from the temple and continued to serve with joy, bringing a Christmas gift of food to the people in our own community.“

Half of the mission’s 234 missionaries attended the first day while the other half the next day. For the service project, the food bank brought 12,000 unlabeled cans to the meetinghouse and temple parking lot in large cardboard bins on pallets. The food bank receives unlabeled cans when a manufacturer makes too many.

The first day, the missionaries took all the cans out of the bins and into the meetinghouse, where they sorted the cans into piles according to a small three digit code stamped on the top. That evening, each pile had to be counted. The code and quantity were reported to the food bank so that labels could be printed and picked up the following morning.

The second day, missionaries applied labels to the cans, put the cans into boxes, then taped and stacked the boxes. The third morning, a small group of missionaries and President Hugues moved all the taped boxes from the gym to the pallets outside for the food bank to come pick up.

When the food bank’s chief operating officer, Caleb Dixon, expressed his gratitude, he said, “That was a lot of work your teams finished.”

The current assistants to the mission president, Elder Hayz Madsen and Elder Tucker Billington, wrote about the project, “This year’s service project was absolutely amazing. It was a wonderful experience being able to come together as missionaries and serve others. We are so appreciative of the Regional Food Bank allowing us to complete a remote project.”

A post on the mission Facebook page said, “Part of our amazing temple day was a service project for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. We sorted, labeled and boxed over 12,000 cans of food that will be donated to community members in need. Our missionaries worked with muscles and smiles.”

Katee Bailey, the JustServe specialist in the Oklahoma City area, said the Church has a relationship with Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. JustServe.org is a free website and app sponsored by the Church where organizations list their volunteer needs and where people can find service opportunities in their area.

Bailey said that during 2024, the Church sent several semitrailer trucks of food to the food bank, which included donations of shelf-stable food, milk, beef and pork. The food bank is also one of the charities in the Light the World Giving Machines located this year for the first time in Oklahoma City.