SUV Firesides in St. Petersburg Stake Center

After a late night last night, we got up early and drove to the St. Petersburg Stake Center for another day of SUV firesides. This was logistically more challenging for the St. Petersburg and Tampa Stakes.  They have limited parking at the stake center, so they had to arrange for shuttle buses from a high school parking lot.  But even with that, there were more people who attended the firesides than yesterday.

The program was basically the same as yesterday.  Missionaries did an invitation blitz in the vicinity of the stake center.  We managed to get all of the Sarasota Zone missionaries involved, except for a couple sets who had previous commitments.  I'm glad that most of the missionaries were able to participate.

Again the music and testimony were excellent.  We had more people in attendance -- almost filled the stake center for the last fireside.  However, we had slightly fewer request cards turned for the two firesides, 283.  Still that was more than typical.

We were optimistic and had ordered enough materials for 500 gift bags.  Since we had in total over 600 requests, we will need to order more Books of Mormon and Restoration DVDs.  This will delay the delivery of some of the gift bags, but it isn't a bad problem to have.

These missionaries helped with the administration both days.  In the middle is Kenya Jackson, Gladys Knight's daughter who organizes the firesides.