Serving the Fire Victims, and Temple Trips

Our experiences this week included:

- Helping start the area’s first Addiction Recovery Meeting which several of the people we are working with attended.

- We put on another monthly Missionary Movie Night. We showed the movie “War Room” which was a big hit. Many felt it was really relevant to their own situations.

- Traveled to the temple to attend the Sealing of the Lopez Family. Time and all eternity! This was a beautiful ceremony. Many tears were shed as the mom and dad were first sealed together and then the three small children were brought in and sealed to their parents.

- Spent time training members of the congregation how to minister to each other so they can care for each other’s needs after we leave.

- Spent our P-day traveling to Gridley to visit the gravesite of one of my former mission companions. He was killed in the line of duty as a Deputy Sherriff in 1984.

- Traveled to the temple yet again, this time with the King’s. We had been teaching and working with them for months to prepare for this day. We all overcame many obstacles and odds to make this trip to the temple happen. As we looked at the picture that was taken outside the temple, we saw that they looked as happy as we have ever seen them! But then we noticed our own faces were just as full of joy also! There is a scripture about that…………how much your joy shall be if you bring even one person to Christ. Great experience at the temple with people we really have grown to love.

- Sister Shephard, who we have been working with for several weeks, also attended the temple for the first time in years this week.

- We helped a man we are working with give up his cigarette addiction. We celebrated with a huge chocolate cake! This is a very fulfilling work, being able to help so many people in so many ways.

Many people are concerned about the Camp Fire which has devastated so many people. Below is an entry from Sister Stewart-Longhurst’s journal regarding what the church has done to help those in need.

“As he conducted the meeting today, Bishop Comstock shared how the church has provided 17 truckloads of food, hygiene kits, water and supplies for the victims of the fire in Paradise. He also mentioned the heroics of those who saved many lives.

One of the bishops in Paradise had left for work in Chico when he felt an urgency to return home at once. As he got back to town, he felt that he should advise all members of the congregation to evacuate their homes at once, even though there had been no official evacuation order for their neighborhoods. Thankfully the church records system allows him to send one text and have it automatically sent to every member. As they all left before the formal evacuation order hit, they were able to easily travel out of town before the congestion hit and the fire got close. As directed, they met up at a church building in Chico and were offered lodging with church members in that locale. As a result of the warning he gave, all the ward members were safely out and accounted for within hours.

There is the off-duty cop from one of the Paradise congregations who drove toward the fires and assisted the evacuees for hours until he felt prompted to check on his own home. As he got to his neighborhood, he could see it was futile to try to save his own home, but then he saw an elderly woman with her cane standing in her driveway as the embers fell all around her. Her husband had driven to Chico first thing that morning and hadn’t returned (he couldn’t get back as all the roads in were closed) and she doesn’t drive. With the fire bearing down on her she’d have been another fire victim in minutes if he hadn’t come by and rescued her.

In our own congregation, we were asked to make financial contributions to help the fire victims. Most of the people that attend here are very poor and the Bishop was timid about this request as he made it. He added that if you couldn’t afford to donate, that you should pray instead. This week he reported that the members of the congregation had donated $1,700, which is HUGE! The widow’s mite appears in this congregation often. They are a very generous people, even though they have so little themselves.

I am grateful that both the church as an organization and the individual members and leaders all responded to this crisis in a way that saved lives and is still bringing comfort to the survivors.”

This mission is the best thing we have ever done! We are so grateful that we have been able to serve!