Hurricane "Sand"y

I got to email "chat" with Melissa for a bit this afternoon.  Fun!  I'm so glad to know that all is well with her.  Here's this week's exciting edition:

Well hello there.

I am very much alive! And I didn't lose any of my posessions. I'll try to address the storm things first and then move on to other aspects of my life.

So, we spent all day Monday at our Bishop's house. I wrote letters while Bishop worked from home and Sister R* watched the news (and I also watched/listened because it was all about the hurricane and so that's how I justified it - because my life was on the line!!). I got a lot of letters written, and I learned that I really hate commercials. Especially political commercials. I also learned that sometimes news anchors and meteorologistas (<-- lady meteorologists, of course) wear really ugly/revealing outfits. Especially the ones in Connecticut. So, there's a fun fact for you. The R*s lost power around 5:30 Monday night, but they had a generator so they got that going quickly and it was just great! We stayed the night there in Killingworth and I slept with earplugs so it wasn't even a big deal! We woke up in the morning and it was very clear and sunny! We were antsy to get out of the house so we helped bishop with some yard work and then drove down to Clinton (we got word that it was safe to go) to see what had happened.

Luckily, there was no damage to our house! Our neighborhood actually got evacuated, but thankfully there was no flooding. We didn't see any damage in our whole neighborhood other than trees down (one right on someone's house, but it doesn't appear to have broken through the roof). A big tree came down in our yard, but it didn't hit our house! (Lots of pictures and a video coming shortly - I'm SO Sorry I've been muy terrible at sending pictures. I still have the SD card here from MJ's birthday!! I'll try my darndest to get those mailed off this week.) Our house was out of power so we stayed Tuesday night at R*'s again - thank you, generator, for giving me a warm, lighted shower as opposed to a cold, pitch-black shower, which would have been my fate had I showered at my house.

Wednesday we were at the soup kitchen when we got word (because our awesome landlord slash next door neighbor texted us) that we had power back! So Wednesday night we were able to spend at our own place. There were no trick-or-treaters because most of Clinton still had no power (seriously, it was just our little strip of the street that had power for the first 3 or 4 days! haha - we're so blessed) so the city postponed it until THIS Wednesday. Yeah, I know, weird. They should have just cancelled it. Everyone bought candy anyway, so they could just share THAT candy with their stupid children, right?

We spent most of Thursday doing service for people! It is so fun to rake leaves. I love it. I'm being completely serious and not sarcastic - I really do love it!! At one place we were loading branches into a trailor and when it would get stacked too high, Sister Vicente would get in and jump all around to flatten them, so we could fit more. It was very fun. We were very sore on Friday. But it was a good sore.

On Saturday we got to do Mormon Helping Hands!! Yessssss. It was fun - I look wonderful in a yellow jersey vest, in case any of you are wondering. We started off doing stuff locally in the ward (going down to Old Saybrook, the city in our ward that was apparently the worst-hit) but there really wasn't much to do! So when the ward dispersed we drove down to Milford and joined up with a billion other Mormons and helped out there for about 5 hours. About 90 missionaries from other zones came down to help with the cleanup so I got to see Sister Jordan and Sister Garcia, and some Elders that I used to serve with! That was a fun reunion. We were on East Broadway in Milford - I'm sure you can Google pictures of the destruction. It was HEARTBREAKING. There was one place where we could see the ocean THROUGH someone's house. Like, the sides were still there, but the front and back had been completely washed away.

We did a lot of demolition (like hammering and pulling apart dry wall, pulling out wet insulation, and ripping up soggy carpeting) at first, and then shoveled sand for the last couple hours. Let me ask you something, have you ever shoveled sand for two hours? It is a very enlightening experience because you learn about muscles that you didn't even know existed! I had a blast, really. It was very interesting to see the whole community out and about, helping each other and accepting help from us. Everyone was so thankful for us being there - I've never been called an angel so many times in one day. Residents were going around offering granola bars, water bottles, bags of chips, etc. to the volunteers. One family made hundreds of sandwiches and drove around handing them out to people, saying thank you. It was SO sweet. It was amazing that even with so much destruction, the people were in high spirits! The house where we demo'd for a few hours was a really sad case. When you walked in, you could see a line of sand at about 5 feet all long the walls - that was where the WATER CAME UP! It was crazy! The worst part is that they had just finished remodeling from hurricane Irene last year, where they had also had to rip out all the carpet and redo all the insulation and drywall. So sad. But like I said, people were in a good mood for the most part. There was a sense of camaraderie that I just loved. Nothing like a natural disaster to bring people together, I guess.

This Saturday, the WHOLE MISSION is coming down to our zone to help some more! That means I get to see ALL my old favorites!! I'm so excited for the opportunity to serve and to have a mission reunion while ON the mission! :)

I think that's all my storm news. Now I would like to say that I am very much excited for this election to be over. I hate political signs and I hate listening to ward members talk about politics. There is one lady in the ward (whom I really do love, I DO) that somehow manages to slip the words "Mitt Romney" into nearly every sentence she utters. I'm ready for it to be done.

Here's some more exciting news. Remember how I said that President Packard told me he had requested at least 30 more sisters? Well, we just got word on Saturday that they are sending in 44 MORE sisters in the next two months!! We only have 22 now (between English and Spanish) so that will literally TRIPLE the sisters in the mission. That also means that every single sister that's here will be training next transfer, and that many will be training two at a time. It also means that they have to open up 22 more sister areas, so many of those trainers will be shotgunning AND training. Can you believe it? So... I don't know if I'm going to get to stay here in my beloved Madison ward or if I'll be asked to open up a new area. But I'm going to be happy either way. What an exciting way to finish up my mission!

On Friday, after district meeting, Snoop Dog's cousin took us out to the oldest pizza restaurant in the United States. Yes, that is true, and almost too much "cool" for one sentence to handle. A member of the New Haven YSA branch who joined the church 7 years ago is Snoop Dog's cousin (well, Snoop dog's WIFE'S cousin, but still) and is really generous, likes to take out the missionaries every once in a while. So he took us to Pepe's Pizza Place in New Haven, CT which, I am told, was the first pizza restaurant ever in the US. Pretty cool stuff! They are famous for a white pizza with fresh clams. I partook and became a witness of its awesomeness.

We didn't get to meet with our investigators this week (again - boo!) because of all the storm drama. Hopefully as people's lives get back to normal (I think everyone in Clinton has power again now) we'll be able to see them. In the meantime, it's been fulfilling to be spending more energy on people's temporal salvation this past week.

In other, less-important, non-eternally-significant news, I bought two cookbooks at TJ Maxx this morning. One has 100 recipes that are 100 calories or less and the other has a bunch of 400 calorie meals. I read through one already and surprisingly, the serving sizes are actually larger than a Tootsie Roll, which is what I would have expected. I'm going to be the BEST healthy food cookeress in America. Or at least in Connecticut. Or at least in my house.

Well, I love you all so much! I'm excited to see what happens with transfer texts this Saturday night. I love you and I wish you a happy start to your November.

Love,

Sister "Here's a shout-out to my Ukranian-bound Sister Ham who enters the MTC next WEDNESDAY!" Broekhuijsen