First Photos from Houston

Sorry I haven't updated the blog in a while. Things have been crazy. Elder Chuch sent us a bunch of photos. He also sent us a written description for the photos. Each of the comments below are his words. Norm.

In the mission home

Our place.

Some of the hurricane damage in Lousiana.

This guy's house was hit by a tornado as well as a hurricane. We were cleaning up all of the stuff from his car port and putting it in piles. It was sad, there were trophies, video tapes, clothes, the family's life in there.

Elders Vaz, Beach, Chuch, Rich.

This picture was taken at a member family's house, the Davises. They had a rat in their attic and so they let the dogs loose up there and they caught it and brought it down. I haven't seen much game besides that. I've seen TONS of squirrels! They're scamperin' around everywhere! I even saw one squished flat on the road but I didn't have my camera with me. I haven't seen any armadillos. I did see a possum in the church parking lot the other day but it was pretty far away.

Dontrell, Elders Jones & Vaz. Dontrell lives somewhere around here. He is working on his mission papers and he helps A LOT of the missionaries. He knows TONS of them. He might know all of them. He is an AWESOME guy. He is very friendly, we are good friends already. Down here your trainer is called your "Dad" and so Dontrell explained how I'm related to all of the other elders. For example, Elder Webb is Elder Vaz's "brother" and so Elder Webb is my "uncle" and the missionary that he trained is my "cousin". One day I was telling him how much I like Bluebell ice cream and the next day when we were by a store he bought me three half gallon containers of banana pudding, chocolate chip cookie dough, and strawberry. He's very generous and is driving missionaries everywhere. I'm going to be fat because of him.

All of the elders in my zone = standing up (L to R): Elder Rich, Elder Abel, Elder Beach, Elder Setterberg, Elder Chaney, Elder Pirente, Elder Tanzie, Sister Maycock, Elder Huish, Elder Maycock, Elder Earl. Kneeling (L to R): Elders Jones, Vaz, & Webb (my uncle).

Elder Pirente - going back to BYU-I.

Thanks for the pumpkin. It adds to the halloween decor.

A tradition around here is to trade ties with your companion. This is how many ties I had before we traded.

My one missionary mall tie on the left. Elder Vaz said this is what he'd trade for it (on the right, 15 ties). He said that that's what he'd remember Elder Jones by. I really liked that tie, but I couldn't pass it up for 15 ties. So now.....

... I have about 19 ties.

My first Texas rainstorm!