Hermana Bettridge in Houston: Flood Clean Up 2k17

Hola, Hola!

I didn't write yesterday because our Preparation Day was changed to Tuesday this week so that we could go out in a big group with members that didn't have to work on the Labor Day holiday and do more clean up! I know everyone is dying to know what is happening, so I will write out a little summary of what happened every day. We were stuck inside of our apartments starting August 26th. I wrote last week about what was kind of going on. I will write out about what happened every day this week!

One of the missionary moms from Oklahoma sent us these cool shirts!

Monday: We were still stuck in our apartment! (At this point we were REALLY bored!) It was raining really hard. A lot of people had been displaced from their houses and so our meetinghouse down the road was being used as an emergency shelter. My last church building in bear creek got totally flooded. We were getting ready for our nightly call with President Peterson to give a report on how we were, and we smelled natural gas. We called the Mission Housing Coordinator so he could contact someone to come look at our apartment, but he wanted us to pack an evacuation bag in case we had to leave. So we had to pack our bags in case it came back and we had to leave in the middle of the night. (But everything was okay!)

Tuesday: It was still raining, but we asked President Peterson if we could go to the meetinghouse to help at the emergency center. The road between there and our apartment was still not flooded. It was basically a place people could go for a few days if they had to evacuate their houses. The classrooms were all turned into little rooms for families to live in and had cots in them. The gym was a donation center (people came and dropped stuff off/the church shipped in some stuff) that people could come take. Three meals were served a day to everyone that needed food. We went and helped serve/make food, clean the church etc. It was really awesome because most people there were not members of our church and a lot of them only spoke Spanish. We just kind of helped everyone feel welcome and tried to cheer them up. Some people said they wanted to come to church services when everything got more back to normal. After we had been there for a few hours President Peterson called, told us we were being evacuated from our apartment because a reservoir down the road was on the verge of overflowing. So, we went home and packed (which was super fast because of the gas incident the night prior!,) and we went to the home of a member of the English Stake Presidency.

Wednesday: We realized how much we loved staying at President Hansen's house because he made us an awesome breakfast every morning! We to a stadium that was being used as a donation center. We helped sort through clothes for a few hours. Then we went to volunteer at a Methodist church that was being set up as a donation center. More people had gotten evacuated that day, so we went back to our church to help clean and set up more supplies.

Thursday: We went back to the Methodist church and volunteered there most of the day. We helped the people who were displaced carry food and supplies to their cars. It was Hermana Fonua's birthday! So we went out to eat afterward.

Friday: The water started to recede out of the affected areas (some areas are still underwater and we can't get to them yet) so we started cleaning out houses. We worked all day on Pablo's house. He lived up near the temple. His house was pretty new, so that was super sad! We carried all of his furniture outside of the hose and then ripped out all of the carpet and carpet padding. Then we started to pull out the wet drywall and insulation.

Saturday: We mucked out a bunch of houses! We worked in a neighborhood in our area with a bunch of members. We knocked doors to see who needed help.

Sunday: It was an interesting Sabbath! We were combined with three other wards (one of which was bear creek because their building is destroyed.) We just had sacrament meeting, and everyone wore their yellow shirts. Right after we all went out to volunteer (there were thousands of us all over the city, it was awesome!) We went with the Bear Creek 2nd ward to a neighborhood with flood waters that were just starting to recede. In parts of the neighborhood you could only get to the houses if you had a boat.

Monday: Yesterday we worked on a bunch of houses again!

Today: We are relaxing because we are really sore and tired!

My missionary purpose is still to invite others to come unto Christ. But, the way we accomplish that purpose has changed quite a bit! From now on we still wake up at 6:30. We are to quickly get ready, eat some breakfast, and study our scriptures for a few minutes. We leave our apartments at 7:30, and go out to help clean up houses. We do that until 4 P.M. and then we go home to shower. We eat dinner at 5, and then we go out and proselyte from 6-9. When we come home we plan for a few minutes, and then we are encouraged to go to bed as soon as possible. Even though I am not finishing out my mission in the way that I thought I would, I still love it! Even though I am wearing my yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" t shirt and tennis shoes instead of a dress, I still have my tag on that has both "Hermana Bettridge" and "Jesucristo." I am striving to be a representative of Jesus Christ in everything I do! We have found so many ways to help others come unto Christ by serving them and sharing our testimonies through our actions.

Have a great week! We will be busy doing service!

Keep Houston in your prayers! ❤️

Love,

Hermana Bettridge

Fotos:

Us in front of our church building that was being used as an emergency center.

We ate lunch at a house that was being used as the "command center" of the neighborhood we were working in. (Yes, Giselle from Bear Creek is next to me! She is back from her two transfer mission to the Texas Houston South Mission. She helped out for a few days, and is headed out to serve the rest of the 18 months in California this week.