Week 80: Burst Pipes and Rolling Blackouts

 Hey y'all!!

As y'all may have heard. This was a crazy week in the great state of Texas. We had record low numbers temperature-wise, and it did some pretty serious damage to the state. We also got lots of snow and ice, which kept us locked in for a few days. I don't think any of us out here were prepared for these incredibly cold days and it definitely showed. Here's a recap of some of the things that went down this week. 

Last Monday morning we woke up without power. Because of problems caused by the ice and an overwhelming need for electricity, the whole state was doing rolling blackouts, which basically meant on for a few hours, off for a few hours. This went on from Monday until about Thursday. It wasn't too big of an inconvenience, expect for when you'd be showering and all of a sudden it's pitch black. But we worked around it.

A huge problem in the state though were pipes bursting. Because they had never dealt with such freezing temperatures many of the pipes were not protected enough and many of them broke. Because of that our water got shut off for a little bit but we filled up our bathtubs and did the necessary preparations.

On Wednesday we got permission from our president to go and do some proselyting at our church building. However when we got there the alarm was going off, and the building as flooded. Apparently a fire sprinkler line broke and started flooding into some of the rooms. Luckily we caught it though before serious damages were made. We then left and had some other tasks to do. However at 7 or so at night my companion and I got the feeling to return to our church building to see if everything was alright. When we got there, we unfortunately saw more flooding, this time right over one of the offices onto a ton of technology, a huge fire hazard. Because we had already shut off the emergency system no one else would have come and no one else was planning on entering the building. I know that feeling to go back to the church was from God so that we could catch the burst before any serious damage was done to the church.

Well those are some of the many events that happened over this last week! We also spent some time shoveling snow and looking for ways to help out in the community. There are lots of people still struggling and we want to help them.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson