Week 43 - And the rains came down again, and the floods went up even higher!

For some reason all I can think about is flood water.  Haha but about that.  We'll talk about it later.

Well for starters, I am being transferred!  I don't know to where yet, so if you were planning on sending me mail, please send it to 16623 Hafer Rd, Houston TX 77090.   I will let you know where I end up next Monday. :)

We had a "Why I Believe" Fireside yesterday in Spanish.  It was pretty awesome.  We got to be part of the missionary choir and that was always a special treat.  We sang A Child's Prayer (which always reminds me of you, mom), Called to Serve, and the EFY Medley in Spanish.  I loved watching the conductor cry as she felt the spirit.  I loved smiling and singing and wondered why I haven't smiled while I sing for the last 20 years, but I am glad I learned that lesson now rather than later.  There were talks by people who recently got baptized, musical numbers, and a bunch of other beautiful surprises.  My favorite part was definitely afterwards.  There in the crowd were all these people that I know and love and had not seen in a long time!  Esmeralda cried into my shirt and I could not stop smiling at all my friends from previous places that I have been.  It was a little slice of heaven pie.

A small miracle: (okay, actually it was a big one) when I was in the beginning of my mission there was a lady we were teaching named Oralia.  Oralia had been investigating the church for 15 years.  Missionaries had given up because she would never progress and could never get baptized for some unknown reason that she could not explain.  But one night Hna Jorgenson and I were sitting in her apartment and we brought up baptism.  She would not accept a date.  But that was when a scripture came to mind!  We brought out the Book of Mormon and read part of Mosiah 18 and asked her to be baptized.  She finally said yes!  But she told us it would take a long time, but she was willing to put a date on it even though it was six months later.  Well, six months later was Saturday, and Oralia was finally baptized.  There was such a sense of peace that came to my heart when I heard that.  Book of Mormon + Holy Ghost = miracle.  There is nothing that Book cannot do.  I LOVE IT!!!

Also, we had flooding.  Obviously.  Haha.  It kind of reminded me of Hurricane Sandy a little bit.  We stayed clear away from flood water for about two days, but then we got to drive across a road which had turned into a small river.  We figured it was safe because there were a lot of other cars there and we made it out fine, but that was about the extent of the high water that we got really close to.  But, in an area that we work in a lot of cars were completely ruined.  We did service in one house where the water line came up to our wastes.  Everything was destroyed as we helped people through their lives away and start over.  A little rain went a long way.  All the rivers are still about to overflow.  School was out all week, and water was up to 22 feet high in some places.  But check this out! BIG MIRACLE:  the area where the temple is was flooded super bad.  Although many mansions were destroyed and the roads in and out were closed for three days, the water never touched the temple.  God protected it from the flood.

A little bit of rain goes a long way.  So do the little things we do every day.  If we want to better our lives, we don't need a flood of change to be happy.  We only need a little sprinkle everyday, such as when we read the scriptures and pray.  As those sprinkles accumulate, one day the rivers will break and the reservoirs will over flow and we will find ourselves in the midst of more enjoy than we can contain.  That is the promise.  Watch the little things you do everyday because your decisions, even the small ones- especially the small ones- determine our ultimate destiny.  So make them count.

I think I now know the meaning of that scripture that says, "and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I love you all!  I hope you have a great week!
Always,
Hermana McCurdy

These first three pictures I snagged from the Texas Houston Mission blog.  This is Madison and Hna Jorgenson and Hna? at the "Why I Believe" fireside.

I love this shot, because you can see the green grass where the water line stops.  I have also seen a great aerial video, that clearly shows the where the water ends.

Some amazing shots of the temple.

There is a story floating around, that during construction inspiration came to raise the Houston temple 10 feet higher then the surrounding area.  Isn't that amazing?

Week 42 - And the rains came down, and the floods came up!

Sorry that I didn't email hardly anyone last week, we went to the zoo.  I really liked the elephants and we took a lot of crazy pictures, all of which are on my camera and we can't find a computer, which means I will show them to you one day in the distant future probably.

At the beginning of this transfer, there were only two people in our English class and president got mad at us and gave us a goal of fifteen people.  This last week we finally hit it!  It was a great class and it was really intense and they got really into the game and it was awesome!

The same day, there was a lot of food gifted to us.  Apparently someone was under the impression that we do not get fed and texted the whole Ward and people have been giving us boxes and boxes of food.  It is a lot of food and I don't know how we are going to eat that much, but we were so happy we cried a little bit.  I never understood how much free food really means to people sometimes.

For the 104th anniversary of the sinking of the titanic this last Friday, we wore black as is tradition.  Haha we were really big nerds.

We had a ward party with the Easter Bunny (aka Elder Jones), and a three legged race, which we successfully won.  I think we were the most surprised out of everyone haha.  It started to rain, but that didn't dampen the party surprisingly.  There was an Easter egg hunt, and everyone went crazy with the piñata as Bishop Narvaez laughed and threw more candy at them.  Our investigator Dani came and she loved it.  She looked so cute.

We also accidentally volunteered ourselves to sing on Sunday.  We sang "I'm trying to be like Jesus" in Spanish.  It actually was a small miracle that it sounded as good as it did.  I love that song.

Last night we were woken up by hail, rain and thunder, and then this morning by a bunch of members telling us not to leave our house because they had canceled schools and there were huge floods.  It sounded like ear is breaking (?), and also like a base drum plugged into an aux jack.

And there were giant floods.  In fact, Kathy (our investigator) is under three feet of water right now.  But really it made me think a lot about Noah, who we have been teaching about this week.  When God told him to tell people to repent, no one listened.  When God told the people if they did not repent it was going to rain, no one listened.  They laughed as he made an ark.  And at the end of the day, Noah was safe and dry with his little Coleman lantern and blankets in the ark.  Noah was a prophet of God, and God told him what he needed to do.  The principle is the same for us.  If we follow the prophet we will always be safe, going in the right direction, and dry.  I know we find the words of the prophets in the scriptures.  So read them!  No matter the problem I know there is an answer there if we go willing to accept the answer that we will find.

Have a great week.  Love y'all :)
Always,
Hermana McCurdy

Floods is right!  This picture of the Houston temple was sent to me by Sam Cousins, whose sister lives in Houston.  I'm pretty sure this is usually a street, not a river….

P.s. Hermana VanDyke and I with snakes.

Hna Lowry and I 

Titanic pictures

Pictures with Elder Galante, the "Easter Bunny", and us at the Easter Party.

Week 41 - Turn left

What a beautiful April Monday!  What a great time to be alive, wouldn't you agree?  Before I get started with the latest and greatest from Katy Texas, what is happening in your life?  How was your week?

This week, some interesting things happened.  I was suddenly grateful that my little Hermanita, Kamrynn, made me watch Hairspray with her over and over and over again when we were growing up because this week I really won over a little girl with my ability to quote that movie.  We had a small Hairspray/Phantom of the Opera dancing/singing moment and I am really excited to work with that family again.

One thing that makes me laugh is that Hna Gutierrez sometimes likes to ask me if I like to make words up, or if the word I just said is an actual word.  Haha I think it's funny she knows I would make that kind of thing up.  But this week we learned the words 'frolicking', 'indigenous', and 'deter'.  In turn she teaches me about  20 new Spanish words.

Normally we get food pretty consistently every day, but this week we had one day where we got fed three different dinners each of them about two hours apart.  Hna Gutierrez and I felt so full and slightly sick after that, but I also felt victorious because I ate every.single.bite.  We are so lucky here in Westgreen to be fed so often.  In Hispanic culture people show their love by giving you food, and that makes us feel all the more blessed.  If food = love, then as we commonly say in our companionship: "Bring it."….and then on Friday we both got food poisoning.  But it was not the same day and to sum it up we like to say that we did a lot of companionship bonding that day.  Haha.

We had interviews with President Mortensen on Wednesday.  That was highly insightful.

Kathy and Armando have five days until they have to move out, so we are helping them.  They like to call Hna Gutierrez and I the beasts because we apparently can lift more than you would expect by looking at us.  I take it as a compliment.  Also this week we helped them at the library where Hna Gutierrez became an expert at small business permit applications and I hurt my brain learning about how to file for divorce in the state of Texas and how to apply for legal aid.  And then resolved once again that I am never getting a divorce.

HNA PROVOST CAME TO VISIT.  She was here in town with her family visiting her mission, as she went home in January, and took us out to lunch at this really cute little Hispanic place.  The food was really good.  I missed that girl so much it even surprised me how happy I was to see her.  We talked each other's ears off for most of the meal, and there may have been itsy bits tears shed when we had to say goodbye to each other again.  Her mom was telling me how much she has changed on her mission and I was grateful to see part of that. :)

We helped some refugees translate legal documents into English.  That hurt our brains, and increased my appreciation for translators.  What a brain workout.  But really it made me so grateful to be here in this country.  A lot of the people we worked with this week are refugees, people who had to leave their homes and their countries and families to come here because they or their children were going to be tortured and killed.  I am proud to be an American, and that I live in a land that stands for freedom.

Something that really stood out to me this week is that God really does hear our prayers.  Even the seemingly meaningless ones.  For example, when we prayed that God would help us find room to eat all that food on Wednesday- and somehow we did.  Or when all of the legal documents that we were translating got blown out of the car and dispersed across a large field and a road and we prayed (while running really fast after all the papers) that we would be able to catch all of them- and the papers flattened themselves against the ground and would not move even though the wind still blew.  I know that God answers all these insignificant prayers because He knows that if we know that He will answer the little ones, we will know that He will answer the big ones too.  If we know that He will help us find our car keys, then surely He will forgive us of our sins too.  So this week, when you have problems, ask God to help you!  I know that no problem is ever too small to ask for help.  Whether it be car keys, a test, or something nearly impossible, God can help and He CAN do the impossible.  We only have to ask.

Have a wonderful, wonderful day!
Always,
Hna McCurdy

Week 40 - My Mexican Matthew Cuthbert

So I am not even sure about what happened this week.  For some reason it always escapes me when I sit here to email y'all.

So just in case you wanted to know about the people we are teaching:
Kathy and Armando.  Kathy and Armando were found by missionaries many months ago but have been working on getting a divorce so that they can get baptized.  We have been working as detectives trying to figure that whole mess out recently but it really has been fun somehow.  Armando I think would be best described as the Mexican version of Matthew Cuthbert from Anne of Green Gables, but he does speak English.  He is the nicest little old man ever.  He asks really good questions and doesn't talk much but you never doubt how kind he is.  Kathy is from Cuba!  She is a highly educated woman who knows something about everything and boy oh boy can she talk.  I wish I could sit there and type out everything that she says.  She likes to call us her guardian angels which I always think is cute.

We are teaching two brothers, Enrique and Walter.  They are from Chicago and are both fans of the Chicago Bulls.  They are both open to hearing our message, Enrique especially.  He is a deep thinker and Walter is really good with people.  They want a better life, and through God we can find them!

Susana and Daniella are this cute little family.  Susana has three adult children, and Daniella who is nine and wants to be baptized so bad!  She is a cute little tomboy who is so sweet and kind.

This week we celebrated by going to buy crepes.  That was fun.

We also knocked a lot of doors.  Like a lot.  But it was so fun!  We got chased by some dogs and by some cats but we had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends.  We met a lot of new people and I am very excited for next week and what it brings.

General conference was fabulous.  I loved every minute of it I think, but especially the music.  Shout out to Blake who I saw in the choir!  That was a nice surprise that filled me with a lot of joy.  I am really blessed.

Sorry for this not so great letter, but all is super will here in Westgreen.  I love you all and I know that we have a prophet on the earth today.  If we follow him we will always be successful.  Have a wonderful week!

Always,  Hna McCurdy

This surprise picture came courtesy Hna Provost who has finished her mission, but came back to visit Texas and find Madison! YAY!