How are y'all doing?? Hope y'all have had an amazing week, and I hope it wasn't quite as eventful as ours out here in Houston haha!
First off, can you read what is written in sharpie on the mailboxes? haha “Ghetto" My home. 😂
I'm sure the entire United States knew, but we got hit by Tropical Storm Imelda out here in Houston, and got hit pretty bad. There have been some fatalities, and so many people have lost their homes. It has been so sad to see. We were not expecting this. It began on Thursday. As we went with Elders Handy and Hoeger to do some service, the rain started coming down. In the morning at 10AM it looked as if it were 7pm at night. It was so odd, very dark and ominous clouds above us. We left and the rain never stopped. We received a text from President Guthrie telling us to leave wherever we were and to stay inside the rest of the day, the storm was coming, and it was mad. So we left, and as we headed up our road, the water was too high. This is only in 2 hours of rain, at 12 o'clock. A foot and a half of water just like that. So, we turned around and Elder Loar and I had to spend the rest of the day and night inside the other Elders' apartment.
Here’s what the skies looked like about an hour before the storm hit.
Us out proselyting the day before. This wasn’t even the big storm!
It was sad. You saw a bunch of abandoned cars. Here’s one of them. We helped one man move his car. The water just filled it up.
Flooded streets.
OK. This is crazy. This lake/pond behind me you usually see a bridge and lots more grass. At this point the water was 4 feet higher than normal.
Luckily, our mission wasn't hit as bad as others. Here there were many who had flooding into their apartments, but it wasn't destructive. In the other Houston missions, we have heard it was pretty horrific. Apparently it was the 7 wettest tropical storm in the history of the US. Pretty wild. The storm ended at like 7pm, but at that point, you still couldn't leave because of the flooding, so we stayed the night and left in the morning.
We had many lessons cancel this week, however, we did have the chance to have Rodrigo come to church, he is starting to be a regular, so that is quite exciting! We also have an AMAZING referral set up for tonight that I am so pumped for. There is a great family in H2 called the Baten, and their daughter is dating a nonmember. He came to church today, and he has come a few times before. His name is Mario, and he's 18. We struck up a conversation and we got along really well. They are so cool. The dad invited us over to teach him a lesson. Funny, when we asked about what he wanted us to teach on he said "Law of chastity and word of wisdom". Sounds like a pretty awesome father trying to protect his daughter, and he's right! The gospel truly provides protection.
To add onto the week, it was awesome companion Elder Loar's birthday! We celebrated by teaching repentance and preparing people for baptism! To end the day we ended at the golden restaurant, Cici's Pizza. It was perfect, because we got to contact an investigator there! She works there! It was great!
I also had a crazy experience. We were walking out of a gas station, and there was a man who greeted us, and you could tell he recognized we were missionaries. Come to find out he is a way less active member, José. But his family is in our ward and they are one of the most active families there are we did not know there was a rogue brother of the family. He started sharing about how he has made a lot of mistakes, and how he hasn't talked to his family in years, but he's been thinking about making everything right. He told us he knows the church is true and that he knows he needs to come back. So he invited Elder Loar and me over this Tuesday to teach his entire non member family of 7. So my new transfer goal is to reunite the Fernández family. Such an amazing experience. I am so grateful that the Spirit told me to open my mouth and talk.
Bonus!! Transfer news came out, and Elder Loar and I are staying together again for another 6 weeks. We are super excited, we know it will be another transfer FULL of miracles.
I also got the chance to watch the President Nelson devotional at BYU. Wow, how awesome is he? He shared so much that stood out. Truth is truth and laws are laws. I love that the Lord will do anything in his power to help us CHOOSE to come back to him, as long as it doesn't break 2 universal laws, our liberal agency and His commandments that He has established. He can't bend laws for one person nor can he force anyone to do anything. But he will do all he can do to bring sheep back to his fold, as long as it coincides with those two things.
General conference is only in 2 weeks!! I am so excited and I have felt such joy being able to listen to the words of the modern day prophets that we have. I know they are called of God. I am so excited to be able to really just soak it all in. Hope we all prepare to recieve the personal revelation we all need!
Love y'all muchísimo! Hope y'all have an amazing week! Thank you for being the best family ever!
Elder Brett Hansen
