Stormin Mormons

Saturday morning, Sean and I got up before the sun and headed out to the church by 5:30 a.m. When we arrived, we saw about 100 men from the Longview Stake ready to go to work. We had been asked to go down to assist the people of Jasper and Tyler counties that have been hit hard from the Hurricane. A week later, and these people still don't have electricity, gas or water. FEMA is just now starting to get into these rural areas. 1/3 of the group went to Woodville, 1/3 went to Jasper and the rest of us went to Buna. Almost two hours down the highway to get to Buna. In that time we saw so much devastation. Houses destroyed, towns not functioning, and 1 million and 8 fallen trees. Yes, I counted them! I realized how lucky we really were in Lufkin. If we were 100 miles farther south we would have had a lot more damage. They say power won't be back up for 2 months. When we got to Buna we meet up at the Bishop's house. They were so grateful we came to help. They have been trying to help all the church members for a week and still so much to do. Sean and I went with a team to three members homes across town. When we got there we could see where they had to cut through the trees to open up the road. We heard that just happened on Wednesday. We cut up fallen trees with chain saws and dragged them to the curb. We worked on 3 houses, with 17 fallen trees. It was in the 90s and it felt hot and humid. It was hard work. One of the houses was actual a motor home attached to a metal shed. One tree was on the motor home, one was on the shed. There was an old lady and a small girl living in the motor home when the tree fell, and they were still living in it with the tree on it. We did what we could to clear the area. The church members there were very grateful and fed us lunch with chicken they had received from the local subway which was trying to get rid of their food before it went bad. The Sonic gave all their meat away to the fire department there and they were feeding people who needed food. FEMA showed up on Saturday too with food, water and ice. The town looked like a scene from the movie Twister. Trees on houses, roads, electrical and telephone wires and poles laying across the roads. Our power was only out for 2 hours- they are already a week without power. Sean was the only young man from our group to go volunteer. He is always so willing to do what is asked. I'm proud of him.

We got back in time to attend the priesthood session of general conference. The prophet thanked all the work teams that are going out to help New Orleans and Texas. Sean was excited that he was talking about us. Our church is sending out about 4000 men every weekend to help in the clean up effort. It's amazing what the church has done. It has donated money, supplies, and thousands of hours of manpower to help. This is what it's all about.... helping one another.

USC also won a close game against Arizona State. We are 4-0 !!! I hope we go all the way to the Rose Bowl this year.

Today I got to hear from our Prophet at General Conference. I am thankful we have a living prophet on the earth today, just as in olden times. It was a very tiring weekend, but one where I felt we really did some good and lived what we believed.