Storm

Before...

During....

Wait, is that pink wood siding?
Pink!?!
Wow, someone actually improved things by making it into the smurf house.

You're going to have to wait for the after picture because things are not quite done yet, but it looks totally different.

But, you don't have to do much to make a blue house look different. Or a pink house.

There have been many snags along the road. My dad wrote this about one of the hard but inspiring things that have happened to us recently.

My daughter and her family suffered pretty extensive external damage to their house in Hurricane Ike. After many hassles with insurance companies and their mortgage company, finally, 7 months after the storm, they were going to get their roof and siding repaired. As the old siding was removed, it was discovered that the sheeting underneath had rotted and also had to be replaced. Their roofing and siding contractor didn’t know what to do. My daughter and her husband were really upset…one more thing to go wrong.

I hooked them up with a man in the ward, Jaime, who had lost his job but had been a contractor before. He got together a crew, and on a Friday, removed all of the second story siding, leaving only studs and insulation. The weekend was supposed to be beautiful, and the replacement siding was to go up Saturday.

As my wife and I settled in for a quiet evening at home that Friday, we heard the rain. We jumped up and I grabbed my staple gun and the ward list on the way out and threw the list in her lap as we drove to my daughter’s house. She called about three people on the way over. There, my son-in-law was trying to put plastic on the back side of the house. My daughter was crying and trying to help as much as she could. What else could go wrong?

It was not raining too hard yet. It seemed just minutes before a man and his son from the ward arrived with a big sheet of plastic we had actually given him when we cleaned out our garage. We raced to complete the back side of the house. Jaime arrived and took off for Home Depot to get more plastic. We used what little bit was left to cover part of the end, just as the wind shifted and started raining from that side. A couple more men arrived that we hadn’t called, bringing tarps, and we started to piece those together. Jaime arrived with more plastic. He had had to barge his way in to Home Depot as they were closing to get it.

The end of the house was too tall for our ladders. We had to get up on the roof to get under the rafters to staple. There was lightening all around and it was raining harder. Lightning struck in the field a short distance away when I ordered everyone off the roof. We were drenched and soaked with cold. Then a sister in the ward arrived with a huge ladder. She had called around the ward to find out who had a tall ladder, driving around with her kids through high water to get it. We used it to finish the end.

Jaime had already laid out plastic across the front. Just as we finished the end, the wind shifted and it began to rain like it can only rain in Texas, a 3-inches-per-half-hour rain. It appeared our efforts were lost, and Hurricane Ike, in an indirect way, was going to claim another destroyed home. We know from experience with gutting such homes, the terrible havoc that water can wreak.

But Jaime knew just what to do. He threw up that huge ladder we had just received in the middle of the front of the house, grabbed the plastic and ran up the ladder to hold it in place under the eaves. We saw what he did and ran up the two shorter ladders on the ends with plastic in hand and held it in place over our heads as high as we could reach for almost 20 minutes while the wind tried to rip it from our hands. Those below tried to keep the plastic from blowing away. My arms burned with the strain of trying to hold it in place. We were all soaked and cold to the bone.

Finally, it subsided and we were able to start stapling. Some insulation had to be replaced, but the house had been saved.

What a heroic effort by my fellow Priesthood brethren, to come at a moments call to help someone in distress! One left his family at a restaurant to answer the call. There is nothing like the church and its dedicated members in all the world. What a privilege it is to be a part of it!

But here is the back story……when that good sister called around the ward to get a ladder, she called the Clark family. Their parents weren’t home, but Hayden, our Deacon’s Quorum President said “Yes, we have a really big ladder”. He called his Dad three times to ask if it was OK. On the third time his Dad answered and told him not to worry about it, the ladder was too big to handle (and it was a huge construction grade ladder).

He answered, “But Dad, Sister Mareth needs it. I’ll get the neighbors.” and hung up. He went and got the neighbors to help him load it on her SUV in the middle of the storm. Now that’s initiative!! That’s leadership!! That’s the power of an inspired Aaronic Priesthood holder who understands service. My family will always be grateful to him for his boldness. His Dad teared up with pride on Sunday when he told me what had happened, grateful for his son’s inspired disobedience.

You don’t know when you will be the answer to someone’s prayer. We would not have saved the house without that ladder. President Clark (Hayden) did what he needed to do… didn’t even back down from his Dad’s discouraging words. I promise you that if you stay close to the Lord, you will be the answer to many prayers and be the source of comfort and strength to many of our Father’s children in stormy times. On your missions, this will happen to you time and again, and will be a source of great joy for you throughout your life. God loves you and will answer your prayers and those of others through you. Be ready for those promptings.

As you can read, we have had a lot to be thankful for.