Hurricane Isaac and the Missionaries of LA Baton Rouge. Part I

I know some of you probably think I gave it up, since it has been several weeks since I posted but we have just been busy with the best things.  We did 3 more Zone Conferences in the Tampa mission with Pres. (Bruce) & Sister (Carolyn) Summerhays.  Yes that name Bruce Summerhays may ring a bell with you golfers, since he played on the Seniors tour for a while.  They were great fun.  It is always interesting to see how different people do the same things.  I don't know where this came from but the concept of "Inviting" investigators to make commitments has been one of the topics at ZC. The object lesson was carried out by Pres. S asking Sister S to the prom.  About 3 different scenarios were performed with a question & answer period on what was wrong and how it applied to "Inviting" investigators after each scenario.  Of course he finally got the job done and she committed to go.  Two weeks later in Jacksonville at the Zone Leaders meeting the same scenario played out between Pres & Sister Berry.  It is actually pretty cute to see them role play this things.

But the big thing in this post is the 5 days we spent (2 full days to drive and 3 days) among the missionaries in the LA, Baton Rouge Mission as they served the people of the town of LaPlace.  As you remember from the last post, hurricane Isaac was on its way to New Orleans and struck there on the 29th of Aug, the anniversary of Katrina.  We had been in Tampa Aug 29-30 and the weather was lovely.  When we got back to Orlando the House that the Young's are so graciously allowing us to rent was "finished" and they were on their way home to UT.  So that Saturday one of the senior missionary couples helped us move our stuff in the mission truck so we didn't have to make more than one trip.  We spent most of Labor Day trying to recover from too many days in different beds and several days of very long drives and the Hurricane just never entered our minds.  Tuesday, Sept 4th,  Sis Wall the MMC started calling about missionaries with foot problems and hand problems from work in water.  Come to find out that Pres. Wall brought all the missionaries, except those in the most northern Zones, into a town called LaPlace to help with flood clean up.  Pat asked, on Tuesday if she would like us to come over and help and she said she would get back to us, and she did, we just didn't get the text message.  So Thurday she called us about a missionary and asked if we were coming?   We were actually packed and in the car making a stop at the Mission Office on the other side of town, before heading to a ZLC in Fort Lauderdale.  We went to the office, took care of our business, came back home, opened our boxes till we found our grubbies, took our good clothes out of the car (Mistake, big time) Threw in some snacks and at 3 pm started on an 11 hour. drive to Baton Rouge.  We got there at 12:45 am, slept 6 hours in the "General Authority" bedroom at the mission home and got up and dressed in our grubbies and our "Mormon Helping Hands" tee shirts and off we went to LaPlace and the following is what we did for 3 days.

President Wall

Sister Wall (not the blonde on left)

A house the Missionaries had just finished

These two pictures are different angles of the same house.  One the left side of the circular driveway is a pile of mostly things like carpet, cabinets, wood flooring, furniture.

 On the right side there was sheet rock, appliances, mostly construction debris.

This was a pretty affluent neighborhood but every house for at least 3-4 blocks had been under @ 4 feet of water.

Different neighborhood but they all looked alike.

 This is what it looked like when we drove into the neighborhood.  The lawn you see that is empty is a house that someone evacuated.  They will have to have special help come when they come home because the mold will be so bad that the volunteers won't be allowed in the house.

And if you are wondering what happens to all that "trash", it is this.  This front end loader with a "claw on it comes by and "sweeps" your belongings and trash out onto the street.








Then he and the little bobcat proceed to pick it up and put it in one of.......

these large dump trucks.  We have no idea where they are taking it.  As you could see there is everything so there are things that will degrade rapidly mixed with stuff that will be around for years but it needs to go because it is growing mold practically before our very eyes.  And the vermin sets up house even before the pile is finished so that is a problem also. 

Peoples lives!  Most are sort of numb.  There were several who were sitting out on chairs and other "seat"s just looking at the acquirement's of a life time waiting for that truck as it was coming down the street.  This was a little less affluent neighborhood than the previous pictures and the toys and pictures and memorabilia were heart breaking to see.  Little piles they had set aside to see if they could rescue something.