Hey family and friends!
This week was a super crazy week but it was super fun. Organizing a
baptism is a lot of work and it takes us all week but it’s a lot of
fun. Betty’s baptism went awesome yesterday and she was super excited
when she came to church. We had the bishop baptize and everything
turned out a-ok. Next week will be the confirmation and then she’ll
officially be the newest member of the Flint ward. That brings the
total of convert baptism in Flint this year to 9.
Tuesday was tornado day! I know I already sent home the videos I made
and a letter about it, but I figured I’d write about it again for the
blog and also because I’ve learned new details. It turns out that
there were 4 tornadoes that hit the Genesee county area. All of them were about
5 to 8 miles from us. One actually passed just south of the
Flint South Elders apartment and the biggest tornado hit Mt.Morris
where the Flint North Elders are. All the missionaries in the county
were a-ok though. The closest tornadoes to us were in Goodrich which
was an EF2 and in Mt.Morris which was just an EF1.
So now my experience of the storm. I’ve always wanted to see a tornado
and this was finally my chance! We got home around 9:00 and I sat down
to play guitar at about 9:15. As soon as I started to play guitar the
tornado sirens went off sounding a warning. It caught me off guard
because usually the mission office sends out a storm watch text and
they never sent out anything. In fact I’ve only heard the tornado
sirens give out an actual warning once on my mission and the mission
office sent out a text hours before that. Elder Smith called our Ward
Mission Leader to see if it was for real (despite what I told him he
was convinced it was a test) and Bro. Partridge told us there was a
strong indication of a tornado landing. There was a tornado watch out
until 9:15. I called Pres. Holmes right after that so he would know
what was going on and forward a text to all the missionaries. We put
together two emergency survival packs and took them down to the
basement before heading back up to the deck to watch the sky. As soon
as I saw a spiral forming we were going to book it down to the
basement.
Our ward mission leader called us whenever there was an update and we
headed to the basement whenever we felt there was a significant change
in the storm. The tornado sirens sounded every ten minutes to let us
know the watch was still in effect. The watch was extended all the way
out to 11:30. We could actually hear the Goodrich tornado hit and that
was when we spent the longest time in the basement. That one was
moving in our direction. It died after 12 minutes and traveled 4.6
miles. Other than that nothing too crazy happened to us. Flint North
stayed in their basement so they were fine and Flint South was at a
member’s house when the sirens went off. All our neighbors either
weren’t home or bailed when the sirens went off but I knew better than
to try and outrun a tornado in a car. Everything turned out fine and
we went back upstairs for good at 11:30. I still stayed up till almost
1:00 am to make sure we were all good and we slept with the window
open so the siren could wake us up if needed. It was an exciting
adventure that’s for sure! Still never saw a spiral though…
Thursday and Saturday we had 3 service projects. On Thursday mornings
we always go and help a part-member family with various things on
their ranch. They own 4-horses and there’s always some fun work to do.
Plus they make us lunch! Also on Thursday we got to
go help an older single sister mow her lawn. On Saturday we went back
to the same non-member’s house we helped lay brick at before and we got
really close to finishing everything. It’s always fun to do service.
On Friday I hit my 2 months left mark. It’s crazy to think that time
is flying so fast. Elder Olsen got his departure itinerary today and
its super crazy that I’ll be getting mine soon. I’m really focusing
on making these last few months great and I would love to get one more
baptism before I take off. Trying not to worry about school and
everything is tough too. My time is running out!
Well, love you guys but I got to bail. Library is packed today!
-Elder Rushton