Hurricane Beryl

 We made it through our first Hurricane. It was quite an experience. Initially it was supposed to make landfall a long ways south of us, but it made a sharp turn just before landfall and went right through the middle of Houston. Even though it was only classified as a category 1 hurricane, it was considered to be in the top 3 as far as the damage it caused. We lost our electricity on Monday afternoon. It didn't take long for the temperature in the apartment to go up. Even though it had been raining, the temperature was still in the mid 80's. We had some battery-operated fans that we used by our bed on Monday night.  Since I use a CPAP, it has been several years since I tried to sleep without it. Well, I found out that I can't sleep without it! So, I didn't get a wink of sleep on Monday night. On Tuesday, I called or texted all of our service missionaries to make sure they were ok.  All of them had lost their power. There were over 2.5 million people without power. While talking with one of our service missionaries, Elder Sealy, he invited us over to stay at his house. He had a small gas-operated generator that would run his refrigerator, freezer, and a small air conditioning unit in each of two bedrooms.  His wife and daughters were visiting family in Idaho so he was home alone. We accepted his invitation and ended up staying 5 nights at his house. We finally got our power back at the apartments on Sunday morning. The Deseret Industries building got its power back on Wednesday afternoon so we went back to the office on Thursday. After work, we went back to our apartment hoping that the power would be back on and to get some more clothes if not. All of the food that we had in our freezer and refrigerator was bad. The ice maker had melted and water was all over. Needless to say, it took a while to get that all cleaned up and then drive back to Elder Sealy's house. He really saved our bacon. Not only was our apartment boiling hot, but without electricity for my CPAP I couldn't have gone 5 more nights without any sleep. We were very fortunate to be able to stay with him and as a result we got to know him better, and appreciate his kindness. We went to chruch with him on Sunday morning since his Church building actually had power even though his house didn't. After church we packed up our stuff to go back to our apartment. He decided that he was going to leave early to go back to Idaho and spend time with his family, so he loaded us up with food from his freezer and refrigerator to take back to our apartment. We have been eating well ever since then. 

I forgot to mention that when we drove to Elder Sealy's house on Tuesday, it took us 2 hours to get there. All of the traffic lights were out, and there was debris, branches, fallen trees, all over the roads. We personally know of several people that had large trees fall on their houses and crushed the roof.  Several people in Elder Sealy's neighborhood were killed when a tree fell on their home. It was amazing to see all of the destruction that was caused by this hurricane. We have never experienced that many days without power before.  It really made us realize how much we depend on power. There were quite a few areas where the cell service was also knocked out.  However, we were very fortunate in that we never lost our water. If I hadn't been able to shower, there would have been a lot more deaths in our area from the inhalation of toxic fumes.

I tried to download a video that I took during the hurricane but it was too large in size and I am roadkill on the information super highway.

There were people that died from heat stroke besides the ones that were killed when the trees fell on their houses. One of the people in our ward had their 2 year old get heat stroke, but they recognized it and were able to take the child to a neighbor's house that had a full house generator to cool him down.

This was the earliest hurricane on record for Houston, so we might have a few more to look forward to before the hurricane season is over in October.

Following is a photo that I took right before the video that I couldn't download. The photo doesn't really show much, you had to be there.

The hurricane only lasted about 8 hours before moving on. We were fortunated that the flooding was minimal because it didn't drop as much rain as was expected. However, the weather immediately turned hot after it was over, making it even more difficult for those without power.

One of the other senior missionary couples, the Henderson's, left to go home from their mission the day after the hurricane. We will certainly miss them, but they were fortunate to get out of Dodge while the gettin was good. Another couple will be leaving tomorrow, the Garrisons. 

The Garrison's have been working in the peanut butter factory. This factory supplies all of the peanut butter for the entire Church Welfare System. They were figuring that they had made about 2 million fars of peanut butter during their time here.

The Church donated about 12-15 semi truckloads of food to the Houston area after the hurricane. The person in charge of all of this assistance in the new head of the Self Reliance division of the church in this area.  We will be having a meeting with him this Wednesday to see how the employment services will be able to work with the self-reliance group to help each other.

The full time missionary senior couple that was managing the Dallas Employment Service area went home several weeks ago. They didn't have anyone to replace them yet so they moved another senior missionary couple, the Garlocks, into the manager position. They came to Houston to their grandson's baptism last week so we got to meet them.  On Friday, we went to the Houston Temple together, had a late lunch, and then went over to the Employment Center to discuss some things they wanted to know about being the managers. They are fantastic people and we really enjoyed meeting them. They took the following picture of us in front of the Temple.

We have really been enjoying teaching the English Connect Classes. There are usually 2 sets of young male missionaries, and 1 set of female missionaries there at the Centro de Hispano on Tuesday and Thursday nights when we teach our classes.  We have gotten to know some of these young missionaries quite well. One of them that has delivered a lot of the Spiritual thoughts at the end of our class is Elder Wolf. Last Thursday was his last day at the Centro Hispano so we got a picture of us together.

He is a very humble person and has such a sweet spirit about him. We have really enjoyed our time with him. Notice the nice rainbow tie that I have on. It doesn't really look like a rainbow pattern, but it does have a big pot at the end!

I have been trying to post on a more frequent basis, but we are so busy it has been difficult to find the time. It takes about 8 hours to prepare for one lesson at English Connect, and when we do that twice a week plus our other responsibilities, we don't have much spare time. It is hard to believe that we have been here over 6 months and that our mission is a third over already. Time is flying by like crazy and being so busy makes it go by even faster.