August 25 Email-My Birthday & The Hurricane

On my birthday the power went out again and the hurricane hit us bad. I have never seen so much rain in my life. We went over to my Bishop's house for a birthday lunch when a member called and said they needed our help. We rushed over to their dance studio and it was flooded in about 5 inches of water from the rain. We were in our church clothes so we took our shoes and ties off and rolled up our pants. We went inside the dance studio and started pumping the water out, but the water kept coming in and getting higher and higher. We went outside on a road that is behind their studio. The water was up to our knees and some parts up to our waists. The water kept coming straight into their studio so we created a barrier out of railroad tracks. These tracks were probably 150 pounds each. We floated them down the road and threw everything we could to barricade the water from coming in. Four cars got stuck and we had to push them out. A Hummer was turned on its side and we had to push it over and out. It was still puring. There were two tornado warnings. We heard it rained 20 inches that day and it was still raining!

August 25 Email-Spiritual Experience

This was the craziest experience. I was driving. I drive this particular route everyday, but I accidentally made a wrong turn. We were going the opposite direction, but I couldn't turn back for some reason. I just kept driving and then I just stopped on a street. I have no idea why. I just felt like I should. It was not me driving. It was like I had no control and was just being led. We knocked on this house and a man answered. The very first house we went to. We began talking and he asked us to come in. So we sat there and talked to him for awhile. He owned his own company and when Katrina hit, he devoted all his time to go help people. He told us some stories that were crazy there. We taught him the whole first discussion and he was like this makes sense. It makes perfect sense. We watched the Restoration and he liked it tons. We made an appointment to come back next week. It was unbelievable because no one ever lets us just come in. Let alone the first house.

August 11 Email-Martin Luther King Jr Street

We went tracting on Martin Luther King Jr Street, right in the middle of the the trailers and the Hood. It really is so humbling to see these people and what they don't have. We went through there and started tracting. Every person there accepted a Book of Mormon. It was AMAZING! They were so willing to hear ANYTHING about Jesus Christ. We were walking and saw some black kids that were like 7-13 years old playing football. There was 6 of them, so we started to play with them. It was so much FUN! It was tackle football and smear the queer together. Not one of the kids had shoes on. We played with them for about 30 minutes. They were so funny. This is seriously a foreign country. Its crazy!

August 11 Email-Decision to Serve Mission Early

Blythe is having such a hard time raising 6 kids on her own that someone recommended for the show "Super Nanny" to come and help her out. Super Nanny chose her family to help! haha. So she is coming out to film on Saturday. Blythe loves us so she told us to stop by everyday and try to get on the show! So we are, and our goal is to get on "Super Nanny". Make sure when it starts you watch, so that you can see the family we found tracting. They are really an amazing family, but she REALLY needs help. We have helped tons, but she needs someone else. I mean 6 kids is crazy, all under the age of 13.

I was thinking about my decision to serve my mission early, and how if I hadn't, I would have never met this family and how perfect Elder Kenworthy and I are them. We both played sports and her son is just so happy to see us. I know I am here for her son. Just to help him. It is really amazing!

August 11th Email-Bythe & Daily

We did service for a lady named Blythe. She is a single mom with 6 kids. She wanted us to come over & play football with her son Daily who is 9. He just started playing football. So we went over to their house, played football, mowed her lawn and just talked for awhile. It was SWEET! Before this Daily has always been sad and stuff because their dad just left. His mom told us that all he did the whole weekend was talk about us coming. She said he has never been so excited before and it is a blessing.

Daily also made Elder Kenworthy and I a tie hanger from scratch. It is like wood, with a football on front and mine says UTES everywhere. It is AWESOME! Blythe said that Daily has NEVER done something like that, and she loves how excited he has been!