Natalie and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Beaumont this weekend and help with the clean up efforts there after Hurricane Harvey. I was still quite a bit under the weather, and was nervous about going, but I knew this might be my only chance to do something like this. It was one of the hardest weekends I have ever had, but I am so grateful I was able to be there. The amount of devastation was far more than I expected. Dealing with life continuing, while living has practically stopped, was so hard to see. The people we were helping had completely lost everything in their homes but the external walls. As we drove up to our first home, the owner was leaving to go to the funeral home because his wife had just passed away moments before we got there. It was a very somber morning, but we knew we had a job to do and would be helping this family in so many ways.There was so much to be done, but we had a fantastic team that just kept going to the end. It was amazing how much water was still saturated in everything!These mushrooms were enormous, and a kind I had never seen before.Natalie discovered this crawfish in a soaked bag of cat litter she was removing from the garage. It scared the living daylights out of her because she thought it was a giant spider. Needless to say, it ended her work in the garage.One of the hardest parts of the weekend, was realizing that we were going to be leaving without completing the entire job. There is SO much work to be done to get life back to how is used to be there. I have done so many service projects and always loved the feel of completing the job. That was not the case this time.This was part of the walk we had to take to bring all the debris to the trash pile. By wheelbarrow mainly! The pile was large, the truck arrive at around 1pm, and still had not even removed half of it by 4pm when we moved to our next location. Piles like that lined both sides of the freeway for miles. Very hard to know peoples memories were all in those piles. Made me really ponder on “things” though, and what is truly important in life. We spent the night in the Ford Center. It was so cool to see so many volunteers all together in one place. Youth members from local wards were handing out root beer floats to everyone as they came in. It was so nice. I didn’t hear any complaining. People were tired and very dirty, but were glad to be helping in the work. We had a great night reflecting on the day past, and Brother Welge treated our entire crew to Chick FilA. It was so very kind of him! After a good night’s sleep, we opened the new day with a 3000+ person sacrament meeting. It was an amazing sight to see! There was so much love and gratitude in that Ford Center. Once we were spiritually renewed, we quickly headed to our next destination. Brother Adams offered a wonderful prayer with the homeowner, Ms. Cara, before we started, whichbwas just what everyone needed.