Oct. 11th:

Last week I turned 20, and This week I will be “one year old” (I've reached my full time missionary half life). What did I get for my Birthdays? Well, I got Matthew.... Hurricane Matthew, to be exact, and because of Matthew I have been without power and running water coming up on four days now.

 

Of course the moment the power goes out, the weather decides to jump start into actual fall time. Last night inside our trailer it was a cozy 45 degrees, but starting next week it's supposed to be back up into the 80's, so I really don't understand North Carolina weather. The Hurricane was only a category 1, but something I never understood is, out here it's not so much the wind that does the worst damage (although there are downed trees everywhere and many a tore up roof or tore up siding), but its the water, the flooding, that is now happening. Because of getting 15 inches of water in less than a day, the water has been washing out roads and highways, destroying farms and pasture land. The rivers and creeks are only just starting to rise.

 

Saturday we attempted to go see some people, but only successfully saw one less-active member. It was raining so hard that even with the windshield wipers on full tilt you still were limited to driving only 20-mph because you couldn't even see the lines on the road. Many of the roads we drove on Saturday are now impassable because of complete wash-outs and downed power lines and trees. That night we started to feel our trailer rock, and the tin roof bending, so we spent the night at our neighbors’ who have a stout cinderblock house that has been standing since the 50's. We figured it would be the safest spot to stay, at least safer than a single-wide trailer (our trailer is fine though and sustained no real damage). In the morning we woke up and it was so nice and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Our neighbors’ yard was completely underwater, and many a roof shingle was torn off, but it was sunny. Church was cancelled, so instead, most of the ward went to go evacuate a family in the ward who lives in an area that will be 7-feet deep in water by the end of the week (why have people lived in that spot since the 1700's I will never understand! This is only one of many times this has happened). Getting to their house, we drove in a big convoy of ward members in a member's great big diesel pick-up, and we had to turn around and find a new route 6 or 7 times because of impassable roads. When we finally got there we helped them move literally everything in the house but the kitchen sink. The ward had all their earthly belongings packed and moved out in less than 2 hours. On the way to dropping off all of their possessions, we had to cross a road that was halfway washed-out and on the other side was a 20 foot drop-off into a flooded swamp. The lane open was less than 9 feet wide and his diesel truck was just about as wide as they make them and there wasn't much clearance between us and death, but as you can tell by the fact that you are reading this, we made it just fine. 

 

And to top all-of-this-all off, Elder Grow is my new companion and he got here just in time for all of the above-mentioned events. His stay here in Alberston has consisted of 3 days with power and water, and the last 3 days without, so he's really not sure what to expect from this area.

 

Yesterday the Library was closed, so we spent most of the day helping a guy here fix damage from the storm, and today we called the Library, and the Librarian told us, "We're open, but y'all know if the creeks keep rising--I'm headed home!" It's all not really that bad, we just can't safely get to most of the people we have been working with right now... so this will hopefully be the best week of awesome service projects ever!

 

When Brother Lee, and I went to pick up Elder Grow, the first thing Elder Grow said to Brother Lee was, "Wow, I like your accent." Brother Lee looked at him and said, "Accent? Y'all know I ain't got no accent." Elder Grow then asked us what the population in town was. Brother Lee and I looked at each other and just started laughing, because there is no "in town," it's just all country--there ain't nothing else.

 

Well, Until next time, I hope y'all have a blessed week!

-- Elder White

Oct. 17th:

This week everyone was in Hurricane-Recovery-Mode. If I were to total up all the hours of service we did--it would come out to about 24 hours of service for members and non-members alike.

 

On Friday after district meeting we went on exchanges. Elder Brown came to Alberston with me. Elder Grow (who is my current companion) went to Mt. Olive, but Elder Grow took the phone with him to Mount Olive, so I had no way to coordinate with the members and elders in Mount Olive for the service on Saturday. On Saturday was a stake-wide disaster relief project, in 10 hours time, over 250 local volunteers from the church went in teams to different sites within the stake boundaries to help families, members of the church, or not, with anything: from removal of downed trees on their homes or property, to completely gutting houses that were left to ruin because of flood waters. We are doing the same next Saturday.

 

Elder Brown and I went with a crew of members from here in the Albertson Ward lead by Brother Herring, and Brother Zeaglar. It was essentially the same crew of people from this ward who went to provide disaster relief with the church to people in Hattiesburg, Mississippi after Katrina hit years ago. Because Brother Herring is the proud owner of his own logging company, he has extensive experience with the removal of trees, so our crew focused mainly on removing downed trees, several of which landed directly on peoples’ homes during the storm. Just imagine the damage a 90 year-old oak tree can do if it were to fall on your house. When we walked inside one family's home, the tree wasn't just on the house, it was IN the house. . . and not only that, but in the storm, after the tree fell through their house, it rained another 6 inches of water! Everything inside that room where the tree fell in was destroyed too. Luckily Brother Herring is a master with a chain saw and could make trees fall exactly where he wanted them to. We cleared the one massive tree from off/out of their house and with the help of about 40 or 50 additional members from the stake, 16 other big trees from off of their property. While working on these peoples’ home (none of which were members of the church.. . yet :) Related to some though), the very distraught mother of the family asked her husband, "Do ya think all these folk, are, are --Mormons?" and just then one of the young men walked past her and said, "Yes, ma'am. ALL of us here are Mormons!"

 

Throughout the course of all of this amazing service, I had still not heard from, or been able to contact, Elder Grow. In the end it wasn't until after 6 o'clock pm that we were all able to meet up and exchange back. Usually an exchange lasts 24-hours. This one lasted about 31 hours. Elder Grow was only about 4 miles from one of the projects we were working on and we didn't even know. He spent most of the day completely gutting a house ruined by the flood.

 

The whole week was full of great service. We were only able to teach 1 lesson a day this week. It would've been much more, but many of our teaching appointments turned into service appointments, which personally I think should count for something more than people generally think. Someone once told me, "Doing service is more effective missionary work, than actually doing just straight missionary work," which has much truth to it (for an example see Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah)! But whether any of this service turns into any new people to teach, or not, it does not matter to me. It matters most to me that we went out and actually helped people in need.

 

Yesterday in church we had a testimony meeting. Everyone who spoke bore a bold and powerful witness of how the trials we face in life, both physically and spiritually, are there to strengthen us, but that they only will (strengthen us) if we will let them do so, and are willing to have faith and do the work that we must on our part. "Trials, Service, Gratitude, Love,”  these are things I have gained a greater understanding and appreciation of this last week, and they are several things I believe we must understand better to be ready to receive the gift of charity from our loving Heavenly Father.

 

The Family that we helped evacuate from their home last Sunday has since lost their house completely. It was swallowed up by the river and is gone. They were at church, and their son, who bore his testimony, mentioned that they were now homeless and was embarrassed because he had nothing but normal clothes to wear to church. Brother Zeaglar, who is my Favorite, made the point to him by saying, that “No,” he is not, "Homeless," but that they are only temporarily, "Houseless," and "These fancy clothes mean nothing if your soul’s dirty. It is what's on the inside that really counts."

 And until next week I hope y'all have a blessed week.

 

RE: Photo Image:

Elder Brown and I didn't even have time to shower and change! (We obviously did more work than they did!!-- haha)

-Elder White