The week started off with a wonderful Regional Broadcast that not only highlighted the love, service and increase of faith in God that came from Hurricane Harvey but ways to continue to have the light of His son, Jesus Christ, in our lives. We also enjoyed having the sisters from our ward over for dinner. After dinner, they each shared their testimonies of the Book of Mormon with us.
We continued interviews with the Houston and Friendwoods zones on Tuesday and Wednesday. While in the Friendswood area, I took the winning district of the PMG challenge to lunch. They chose Jason Deli as their reward lunch. I think the best part was visiting with them while we ate together.
Each day after interviews I quickly had to get back to Sugarland. On Tuesday, I had parent teacher conferences with Jessie’s teachers. I met with both of them at the same time. They had great things to share with me about Jessie. She is very conscientious of her academics, friendly and inclusive of others. Always wonderful to hear such compliments about your child. Jessie stills has book reports this year. Most likely twelve like last year because of Harvey. Thus far, Jessie has read Walk Two Moons, The Wonder of Charlie Anne, Esparanza Rising for her Texas Reading Club and Alexander Hamilton, The Outsider for her biography/social studies report. She just started reading Wonder this week and is enjoying it a lot. Zac had a dental appointment on Wednesday. Yeah! No cavities.
Thursday, I headed to Galveston Island to meet with the sisters serving there for companionship study. We studied for one of their investigators and a couple of their less active members discussing ways to increase their faith so they can overcome the obstacles that hold them back from coming to church regularly. It is amazing how the spirit can bring to mind the things that will make a difference in the lives of those we are trying to help. Bode had an orthodontist appointment right after school that I had to get back to take him to. His teeth are moving as planned which is good to hear. We are hoping to speed the process up by having him use the accelladent device so his treatment will be finished by the time we return to Utah.
Aaron and I enjoyed dinner with the bishop and wife from the Alief ward on Friday night at a great Thai place in old Sugarland. A family in the ward whose house was flooded by Harvey were finally able to move back into their house on Saturday. To help, I watched their 9-month-old for a few hours during the day. I tried to get their 2-year-old to come too but she loves her mom way too much to leave her side. We haven’t had a little one in the home for so long, the whole family wanted in on the caring of her. Later that night, Aaron and I went to the President of the Houston Mission’s home for a wonderful evening of conversation and dinner. You could say this week is the calm before the storm. Next week we will be preparing and gearing up for our mission to receive smart phones at the end of November. It should be exciting. For my own preparation, I am going to be using social media more wisely and to share goodness.