T.H.E. Times and Seasons

We apologize for such a late update.  It has been a full day of service for our missionaries.  They are incredible! The rains have ceased and let the cleaning begin!!  The missionaries have been out today providing service for so very many that need help with flood cleanup.  When homes and apartments have flooded, everything in their homes must be put out in their front yards close to the curb.  When everything has been taken out,  the sheetrock must be removed down to the studs to prevent mold from setting in. T he missionaries have been of great value today in aiding in these areas.   Beaumont's water treatment plant went down so water is very scarce!   There are two dams above Beaumont and Vidor that are releasing water right now which is causing the flooding in those areas and not the rain. It has been joyous to see the sun after so much rain and our spirits have been greatly lifted. #Liftandlove

As of 8 pm tonight, all missionaries have been accounted for and are safe.  The flood waters in several parts of T.H.E. Mission have receded and some of the missionaries have returned back to their apartments.  That is good news!  Tomorrow will be a big day as missionaries around Houston go back to their apartments and begin assessing apartment damage, if any, and car damage, if any.  If there is any apartment damage, the missionaries will then assess personal belongings damage. Many missionaries have been providing service today helping families at their homes.  All service activities are coordinated through the Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders.  Missionaries are not allowed to initiate service on their own.  The Stakes and Wards are very well organized and provide protective gear if needed, to ensure safety for all involved.  Stake and Ward leaders and Missionaries have all been instructed on the Church's service safety guidelines. The east...

Hello everyone, There has been substantial rainfall in the Beaumont to Lake Charles area.  All missionaries have been accounted for and are safe.  We have President Johnny Ross, my second counselor in the mission presidency, who lives near Beaumont and is watching over and taking care of missionaries needs on the eastern side of Texas and in Louisiana. I was on a conference call this afternoon with Elder Daniel Jones, LDS Area Authority Seventy, and Stirling Pack, Jr. Disaster Recovery Specialist for the Houston Area.  Relief supplies for this area and Bishop's storehouse are already here or on their way from Salt Lake City.  Efforts to coordinate clean up efforts are underway.  Stake Presidents have been instructed to take care of the people in their stake first before serving outside their stakes.  There are many stakes where homes have not been impacted at all by the flooding.  Missionaries will be working through the wards and stakes in their ...

Good morning Families and Friends! My wife and I were out this morning walking from one LDS church member's home to another, where we have set up our command center.  The Sommers and Tolmans here in Houston have been amazing to open their homes to us as we try and coordinate and make sure all of our missionaries are taken care of and safe and dry.  We could not do this without such loving and concerned church members here.  The weather was very pleasant and it was so nice to just be outside and not have it raining!  Enough of that! As of 8 am this morning, all missionaries in T.H.E. Mission have been accounted for and are safe.  Here is a summary of where missionaries are housed: 32 young missionary companionships have been moved from their apartments.  26 of those companionships are housed by LDS church members.  6 companionships are with other young missionaries. 3 senior missionary couples have been moved from their apartments and are bein...

Good evening Families and Friends! As I am sure all of you are aware, there has been flooding in many parts of T.H.E. Mission.  Because of reservoirs rising and the threat of those dams being compromised, additional water was released which filled areas of Kingwood with more than expected amounts of water.  The Mission Home was evacuated by us before it reached our front door step.  Many other missionaries by us were moved yesterday or the day before into housing on the dry side of Kingwood.  From yesterday evening at 6 pm when we left the Mission Home until the next morning around 10 am, the water had risen approximately 8 feet, so the Mission Home would appear to be compromised and full of water, as is the Mission office, which is less than a mile from the Mission Home. As of 8 pm tonight, all missionaries have been accounted for and are safe.  They are in good spirits.  A few missionaries went out with their bishops delivering food and blankets to t...

There is wide spread devastation that has occurred in this area of Houston.  While we have not had the hurricane destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey, we have had historical flooding. I just had a conference call with all of the Zone Leaders in T.H.E. Mission and every missionary has been accounted for and is safe.  The rain is beginning to let up in some parts of our mission and yet in  the eastern part it is beginning to pick up. I talked with our Zone Leaders about service opportunities that might become available to assist the local priesthood leaders.  Missionaries are still required to stay indoors unless they have been asked by local priesthood leaders to accompanying them in distributing goods or clothing to those in need.  They must obtain permission from their Zone Leaders and report when they leave and return to their apartments.  They have been given specific instructions as to what type of activities they can and can not be involved. O...

Good morning! First off, all of the missionaries are accounted for and are safe.  There have been no reports of young missionaries losing power or having flooding in the current places they are residing.  However, we had 3 senior missionary couples experience flooding and are now in safe places. The search and rescue people here are amazing!  They are out and about looking for people to help.  They helped us get to a safe place. We will keep you updated later this afternoon. We are grateful to our Heavenly Father for his kind hand in watching over and protecting our missionaries!!!

This has been quite the eventful day for us!  The rains came down and the floods came up......  Wow, this is never ending! All missionaries have been accounted for and are safe and dry.  They have plenty of food and water. We made a few more moves today to get missionaries to places that would keep them safe and dry.  A few areas were evacuated, but those missionaries have been placed with members.  We have moved about 30 companionships in total so far.  We continue to monitor the situation and move missionaries as needed.  The local leaders are so involved in helping us get missionaries to safe places with members.  They truly are very Christlike in every way. All missionaries should have emailed their families to give them an update.  I am sure those emails were filled with some incredible experiences. Today, we decided to evacuate the mission home, because our power went down and we were unable to communicate with the missionaries ...

The rains keep coming.......... As of 2 pm all of the missionaries have been accounted.  All of them should have emailed you today. Because of the unprecedented flooding levels, we continue to move a few missionaries as needed.  We are in constant contact with those that are being moved to member's homes to ensure they arrive safely.  The local Priesthood leaders are out and about trying to make sure the members and missionaries are taken care of.  We had a visit this morning from President Goodman, 1st Counselor in the Kingwood Stake Presidency.  He and his daughter rode their bikes across the bridge in waist deep water to check on us and others.  What an amazing group of people here. While I was trying to find a place for some missionaries to stay, out of the blue I received a call from a member offering their home to any missionaries.  It amazes me how Heavenly Father knows everything and is concerned about our well being, especially His missi...

Good Morning from Eastern Houston! As of 8 am this morning all missionaries have been accounted for and are safe.  The rains are making the water levels rise and some areas have been significantly impacted by the rain.  It has been a blessing to have local leaders helping us, because they are aware of what areas are prone to flooding and which areas are safe.  Had we not moved a lot of our missionaries yesterday afternoon, many of them would be stranded today. All of your missionaries should be emailing you today with an update on how they are doing.  They have been instructed to NOT drive at all until further notice.  We do not want them to get on the roads and get stranded.  As you can imagine, the missionaries are getting very antsy as they are used to working very hard and always talking to people.  I have told them to enjoy the rest, because as soon as this weather passes, we will be busy providing service cleaning up and helping others! Eld...

Sorry this is not original. All of the missionaries are accounted for and are either in their own apartments where there isn't any flooding, with another set of missionaries whose apartments are on the second floor, or with members who have opened up their homes to house missionaries.  We love the people here in Eastern Texas and Louisiana!  They are the kindest, most giving, Christlike individuals.  They are always looking out for the missionaries and their wellbeing.  The members get very protective of the missionaries and threaten President Hewlett if he transfers them, he will be in big trouble!  They become so attached to these missionaries and love the examples and service they provide to their members and investigators. President Art Rascon, 1st Counselor to President Hewlett, is also the Houston ABC news anchor, and he is continuously providing weather information to President Hewlett to aid in making decisions to assist the missionaries and their sa...

More rain keeps coming down! With forecasts of more rain in most of the areas of T.H.E. Mission, we have moved several missionaries to either member's homes or with other missionaries whose apartments are on the 2nd floor.   While most of those moves have already occurred, we still have a few of them occurring this afternoon, before the roads become impassable and daylight is gone.  We decided to move these companionships now and not wait until later when it might have been impossible.  So far we have moved 15 companionships and are working on a few more. We will keep you updated.

I am sure many of you have been watching the news and seeing images of horrific flooding which is occurring in the Houston area.  As of 10 am this morning, we have 4 apartments that are close to flooding and one apartment without power.  We are in the process of moving those missionaries to either other missionary apartments where the threat of flooding will not occur, usually because they are on the second floor of apartment buildings, or to member homes.  Some of these have already taken place or are in the process of taking place right now.  We have plans for ALL missionaries to be placed, in the event of continued rain and flood threats. The Stake Presidents and Bishops have been so amazing at taking care of our missionaries and helping us place missionaries, in the event we don't have other missionaries close by to house them. Beaumont stake decided to cancel their meetings today.  However, Orange stake conference is taking place right now.  We wer...

Good morning, As of 8 am, all of our missionaries are safe and accounted.  Three of the five stakes have cancelled all church meetings.  The outlying stakes over in Beaumont and Orange have not cancelled their meetings as the weather has been more mild over there.  All missionaries have been instructed to stay inside today, unless they are over in the Beaumont and Orange stakes. No apartments have lost power or have flooded over night.  We are in the process of gathering data from the missionaries regarding potential apartment flooding issues and back up plans to put in place to move certain missionaries that may be impacted by potential flooding to their apartments.  But as I said, all missionaries are safe and accounted.  They will be studying certain conference talks today in preparation for upcoming events in our mission. We love your missionaries!

The day has been very eventful with several baptisms taking place and a great turnout for these ordinances!  We are blessed to be in an area where there are very faithful and amazing members of the church. All of the missionaries are accounted for and safe.  We are in constant contact with our missionaries throughout the day and are providing guidance to them on a continuous basis.  There is no damage to any apartments or dwellings where the missionaries are living.  Here is what we are assessing as the storm continues: 1) List of apartments susceptible to flooding (those on the first floor).  And a plan of where each missionary will go to be safe and away from any flooding.  Currently, no flooding has occurred to any of our apartments. 2) List of apartments without power.  We had a few without power this morning, but currently, all apartments have power. 3) List of companionships low on water/food.  There were a few low on food, but they ha...

Good Afternoon Parents and Friends, All of the missionaries are accounted for and safe.  As hurricane Harvey struck in Corpus Christi and up the coast into other cities, those areas are 120-200 miles away from the western areas of T.H.E. Mission.  The wind in the areas of our mission has been minimal.  There has not been any damage sustained by any of the apartments in our mission.  There are a few apartments without power and they have gone to nearby missionaries' apartments. We have been receiving a lot of intermittent rain, but no flooding has occurred at this point.  We have had baptismal services going on in parts of our mission today as well as a stake conference in Orange that is still going forward this weekend.  Orange is on the Texas/Louisiana border.  The forecasters expect continued rain for the next several days, which could increase the likelihood of flooding in parts of T.H.E. Mission. All missionaries have been instructed to have ...

As of 2:00 all of the missionaries are well and there are no problems at all. #Liftandlove

We haven't needed any canoes yet!!  As of 8:30 this morning, all missionaries are safe and accounted for.  Our missionaries have been instructed to  provide us an update at 8 am, 2 pm, and 8 pm until the storm passes.   Thank you for your prayers and support. The eye of the hurricane has not impacted us.  Our mission is farther north, so when you see the news remember that it's not our area but we continue to pray for all of those who are affected.   What will impact us is the continuing rain and flooding. Our missionaries are wonderful and we love them!

Good morning.  We will keep updating this blog as we continue coverage regarding our missionaries with hurricane Harvey.  The missionaries have been well trained on procedures so all is well.

We are almost through our first round of Zone Conferences and they are every bit as spirit filled as they were when I served my mission.  These Elders and Sisters are powerful.  We truly feel honored to be able to serve with them here in Houston.  The conferences have been about faith in Jesus Christ and exercising faith in Jesus Christ. During the conference a question was asked of the Elders and Sisters  what comes to their mind when they hear the word exercise?  By far the greatest comment was "donut."  He said he loved food and  left it at that.  The humidity, by the way, is not nearly as terrible as we were told it would be.  Our skin has never had such a glow.     The rains remind us of Hawaii where they come out of nowhere, rain hard, then out comes the sun.  So feeling the Hawaii weather feels like a vacation.  We love it and we love the cute baby lizards that live in our garage.  President Hewlett's counsel...

There is not a picture to go along with this story but the story is still worth telling!  Learning when and what to feed missionaries has not come as easily as hoped for.  There isn't a manual on what meetings they need food, or what to feed them for a meal, and or what to feed them for breaks at the various meetings they attend. After looking through pictures of past meetings, after asking the assistants multiple times of what, when and where, it came down to crunch time.  The missionaries needed lunch for a training meeting to be held in a couple of days.  There would be 50 missionaries needing lunch.  There seemed to be a shortage of people to help with this lunch.  Wanting and thinking it had to be all homemade with a beautiful centerpiece and maybe even a theme, panic set in.  The reality was that it had to be simplified, big time. So swallowing pride, it was necessary at this point to let go of the idea and plans to have a delicious home cook...

What a whirlwind this week has been.  We had 26 missionaries go  home and 17 arrive.  It was so much fun having them in our home for lots of meals. The ovens in the mission home don't quite work so crock pots and roasters saved the day.  We were able to go to the Houston Temple with the missionaries  returning home.  Although we were with them only a month, we grew to love them and recognize how amazing they are.  We are excited to serve with the new missionaries that just arrived.They are a great group of Elders and Sisters ready to serve with all their heart.   The assistants have been beyond helpful.  We literally would have been lost without them.   The rain is unlike anything we have experienced.  I think Houston doesn't know how to rain lightly.  Its a down pour without warning.   The learning curve has been straight up but we are loving working with the missionaries.  One of the fun things for m...