This
has been one crazy week. Since I didn't get to email a lot last week
I'll write more about what we did to prepare and what not. The week before the
hurricane hit was pretty crazy too. Our mission President told us to get
everything ready just in case we had to evacuate. So I already had my 72
hour kit and everything, but my
companion Elder Kennelly didn't so we went out on Tuesday to get everything he needed. Well it was a pretty hard task because all of the water and canned goods at the stores was gone. The shelves were pretty bare. We ended up finding a store that still had some left though. Then we went to fill up on gas because we needed to have a full tank. Well that was a pretty hard task too because all of the gas stations were either closed because they've run out of gas, or they had a line going all the way down the street. So we had to wait in a
line for about 45 min just to get some gas, but we got it so that was great. Our leaders told us to avoid using the car this week so we could keep gas in the tank. So we were biking around on Friday in Tarpon Springs trying to contact people and going to our lessons and such when a cop stopped us on our bikes and told us we had to leave. We thought it would be for soliciting or something, but she said that the city was under evacuation for the hurricane. So we ended up biking home. Then we got a call from one of our zone leaders telling us that we were going to evacuate Saturday morning, which was the next day. So we made sure we had everything ready and prepared the apartment. They had us move everything away from the windows and off the floor about 2
feet. So we had everything all ready to go. We left Saturday morning to go to the Odessa stake center which is about 15 miles inland from our apartment. As we were driving I noticed everyone's houses. They were all boarded up around the windows and had sand bags in front of the doors and garage. This hurricane is the biggest ever recorded in the Atlantic, so it was good that everybody prepared well. We eventually got to the Stake center and got settled in to our different rooms. They had us keep busy while we were there. We cleaned the whole building, had district and zone meetings, had study time, and we even got to watch movies and eat popcorn. We all had to sleep on the floor, which wasn't the most comfortable, but I'm glad that we were able to
be in a safe building. The worst of the storm hit Sunday night. It was a category 2 when it hit us. So it could have been a lot worse, but there was still a substantial amount of damage. We left on Monday afternoon to go back to our apartments. The Clearwater Elders came with us because their apartment was still out of power. We were blessed and had power in our apartment. We didn't have any damage to our apartment either so that was another blessing. President Cooper told us to serve as much as we can so that's exactly what we did. We
got in our service clothes and went out to serve!
It has been so much fun to serve people in the aftermath of the hurricane. We have had a few scheduled service opportunities, but we've also just been offering help to everyone we see and it's paid off! We have helped so many people this week. Mainly cleaning up branches that have fallen, raking leaves and moving sand bags. We were able to help cut down a huge tree that fell on our Stake Presidents home. Luckily there wasn't too much damage to his house, just a couple holes. There were a lot of us there so it went by pretty quickly. I'll send pictures of all this as well. As we drove around to give service we saw a lot of damage around the area. There were tons of trees snapped or fallen over, fences blown down and torn apart, billboards blown down, tons of business signs destroyed, cars smashed by trees, power lines torn down, building torn up and so on. It was pretty crazy. Everyone we helped was so grateful. It felt good. I'm glad that we were able to show our faith by what we were doing. Yesterday was the first full day that I wore a white shirt and tie. We have just been serving non-stop all week. I love it! I'm sure we will have many more opportunities in the coming weeks as well. Sadly we weren't able to have church yesterday because the building is still out of power. Many places still don't have power, but it's slowly getting back to normal. We dropped off the Clearwater Elders yesterday because they finally got power back to their apartment.
On a lighter note, we are going back this week to see a lady we helped clean up her yard. She was so thankful and wondered why we were so passionate. We told her it was because of what we believed in, she
was curious as to what we believed in so we told her a little bit and set up a time to come back and share more. It was so cool! Even though the storm caused damage, we are finding opportunities to meet and teach people as we serve. It's been great. Well, I hope that you all are doing great. Thank you all so much for sending your prayers to the people down here that were affected by the storm. It's helped a ton. I'm looking forward to continue serving the community in any way we can. I love you all!! Have an amazing week!
companion Elder Kennelly didn't so we went out on Tuesday to get everything he needed. Well it was a pretty hard task because all of the water and canned goods at the stores was gone. The shelves were pretty bare. We ended up finding a store that still had some left though. Then we went to fill up on gas because we needed to have a full tank. Well that was a pretty hard task too because all of the gas stations were either closed because they've run out of gas, or they had a line going all the way down the street. So we had to wait in a
line for about 45 min just to get some gas, but we got it so that was great. Our leaders told us to avoid using the car this week so we could keep gas in the tank. So we were biking around on Friday in Tarpon Springs trying to contact people and going to our lessons and such when a cop stopped us on our bikes and told us we had to leave. We thought it would be for soliciting or something, but she said that the city was under evacuation for the hurricane. So we ended up biking home. Then we got a call from one of our zone leaders telling us that we were going to evacuate Saturday morning, which was the next day. So we made sure we had everything ready and prepared the apartment. They had us move everything away from the windows and off the floor about 2
feet. So we had everything all ready to go. We left Saturday morning to go to the Odessa stake center which is about 15 miles inland from our apartment. As we were driving I noticed everyone's houses. They were all boarded up around the windows and had sand bags in front of the doors and garage. This hurricane is the biggest ever recorded in the Atlantic, so it was good that everybody prepared well. We eventually got to the Stake center and got settled in to our different rooms. They had us keep busy while we were there. We cleaned the whole building, had district and zone meetings, had study time, and we even got to watch movies and eat popcorn. We all had to sleep on the floor, which wasn't the most comfortable, but I'm glad that we were able to
be in a safe building. The worst of the storm hit Sunday night. It was a category 2 when it hit us. So it could have been a lot worse, but there was still a substantial amount of damage. We left on Monday afternoon to go back to our apartments. The Clearwater Elders came with us because their apartment was still out of power. We were blessed and had power in our apartment. We didn't have any damage to our apartment either so that was another blessing. President Cooper told us to serve as much as we can so that's exactly what we did. We
got in our service clothes and went out to serve!
It has been so much fun to serve people in the aftermath of the hurricane. We have had a few scheduled service opportunities, but we've also just been offering help to everyone we see and it's paid off! We have helped so many people this week. Mainly cleaning up branches that have fallen, raking leaves and moving sand bags. We were able to help cut down a huge tree that fell on our Stake Presidents home. Luckily there wasn't too much damage to his house, just a couple holes. There were a lot of us there so it went by pretty quickly. I'll send pictures of all this as well. As we drove around to give service we saw a lot of damage around the area. There were tons of trees snapped or fallen over, fences blown down and torn apart, billboards blown down, tons of business signs destroyed, cars smashed by trees, power lines torn down, building torn up and so on. It was pretty crazy. Everyone we helped was so grateful. It felt good. I'm glad that we were able to show our faith by what we were doing. Yesterday was the first full day that I wore a white shirt and tie. We have just been serving non-stop all week. I love it! I'm sure we will have many more opportunities in the coming weeks as well. Sadly we weren't able to have church yesterday because the building is still out of power. Many places still don't have power, but it's slowly getting back to normal. We dropped off the Clearwater Elders yesterday because they finally got power back to their apartment.
On a lighter note, we are going back this week to see a lady we helped clean up her yard. She was so thankful and wondered why we were so passionate. We told her it was because of what we believed in, she
was curious as to what we believed in so we told her a little bit and set up a time to come back and share more. It was so cool! Even though the storm caused damage, we are finding opportunities to meet and teach people as we serve. It's been great. Well, I hope that you all are doing great. Thank you all so much for sending your prayers to the people down here that were affected by the storm. It's helped a ton. I'm looking forward to continue serving the community in any way we can. I love you all!! Have an amazing week!
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