As you can tell, it has been a while since my first post. As a result, I am having to relearn how this blog works. Hopefully, everyone will be able to log in to it and see our posts during our mission in Houston, TX. 

We are managing the church employment services in Houston. It covers a large area of Southern Texas, including San Antonio. There is a new Deseret Industries building here in Houston, and as far as I know, it is the only one in Texas. For those of you who do not know what Deseret Industries (DI) is, it is very similar to Good Will Stores.  They accept donations and then they are sold at low prices in the store. I knew that DI hired individuals that had handicaps and could not find other employment, but I did not realize that the main goal as far as the employees are concerned is to teach them how to work, and train them in specific areas according to their abilities.  They have classes that we teach which helps them learn how to find future employment. They are taught how to write a resume, interviewing skills, where to look for jobs, to mention just a few. Each employee works at DI for a maximum of 18 months, and by the end of that time period have been trained on how to find a good job.  We are responsible for helping them in this area.  

Our office is in the DI building. We are there to help anyone, regardless of their religion, who is looking for employment or wanting to change jobs for one that better fits their needs. There is a lot of training and information that we are going through now to be able to help those looking for employment. At first it seemed to be quite overwhelming, but now after being here for several weeks, we are getting a handle on it. 

The people that are working at DI have very special spirits. My heart aches for them, knowing that they have certain handicaps that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. However, these people have the desire to work and to make their own way as best they can. In these few short weeks, I have been able to help some of them, and have developed a closeness to them, and wanting to do whatever I can to help them, both temporally and spiritually. 

When we arrived in Spring, TX., a suburb of Houston, the senior missionary in charge of housing met us at the apartments.  He said he had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that everything was fine with our apartment, the bad news was that it was on the 4th floor and the elevator was not working. I had the car packed so tight that a mosquito would have had to squeeze in if possible. Needless to say, about 10 trips up 4 flights of stairs, 59 steps to be exact, was about all this old man could handle.  Thank heavens for the young missionaries that helped us with the last few trips up the stairs. So, after being here for 17 days, the elevator still doesn't work, and my legs look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am going to have to get some pants with bigger legs in them soon if the elevator doesn't get fixed. 

We have met most of the Senior Missionary couples in this mission now and it has been great getting to know them. Several of them have dropped by for a visit and brought some pretty tasty treats. Our new ward is great. However, we have learned that we don't have to arrive at church 30 minutes early to get a seat like we do at the Spring City 2nd Ward. There was only one or two people there when we arrived today, so we definitely got our pick of seats. We are going to continue to arrive early so that we don't get out of practice when we get back to the Spring City 2nd Ward.

The first few days after we arrived it was colder than Utah and very windy. Then it poured down rain for 3 days and we got more rain than we do for the whole year in Spring City. Then we finally got some of the nice 70 degree weather that everyone was talking about. The traffic here is going to be the hardest thing to get used to. In Spring City, I got caught in rush hour traffic and had to wait for both cars to go by. Here, you have to wait for about 1,000 cars if you're lucky. There are 7 million people in Houston, and I think all of them are going to the same place I am.

We both feel so fortunate to be able to go on a mission together here in Houston. We have already met a lot of very nice people, and have had some special spiritual experiences. We are looking forward to our mission and being able to provide some help to those who are having a difficult time providing for their families. We are sure that it will be a very rewarding experience and a most special time for us together.