February Freeze and a Final Farewell!

                                                               

February was a month of saying goodbye to the people we had grown to love in Texas. This was one of the gatherings we had at the mission home hosted by President and Sister Larkin and the other senior couples that assist them in their work. Elder and Sister Bright were completing their mission two weeks after us so we had fun spending time together. 

I was amazed by this beautiful layered cake made by the talented Jill Larkin!

Hermana Vanderwalker woke up with abdominal pain and ended up with an appendectomy! After surgery she and her companion stayed at the mission home and her mother was able to fly in to visit and assist in her recovery.

Being with the missionaries is always the best - even if it is to deliver a boot for Hermana Cutler's sprained ankle!

These sisters radiate goodness!

On a drive with our friends the Dickmans we saw these little mounds of dirt all over in lawns and pastures and couldn't figure out what they were. We finally stopped at a fruit stand and asked the man and he explained that they were crawfish chimneys. How did we spend five years in Louisiana and a year in Southeast Texas and not know this?! 

Apparently when there is fresh water nearby the crawfish will tunnel through the ground and make little burrows in the mud - hence the term "mudbugs." This information makes them even less appealing to me!

They ruin lawns and are very hard to get rid of. One thing we don't have to worry about living in the desert!

We had heard about Gator Country early on in our mission and knew that it was something we wanted to see before leaving.

It is a mostly family run alligator preserve - they take injured alligators and those taken from homes.

I was pretty brave holding just the alligator head!

You could buy a package of hot dogs to put on the end of these poles and dangle them over the fence to watch them eat.

I was more comfortable feeding lettuce to the slow moving tortoises!

This is their biggest and oldest gator - Big Al.

They lost most of their alligators during Hurricane Harvey and most of the alligators they have now are imported Florida alligators! (The subtle differences are only visible to the experts.)

This sign made me laugh!

We also drove to this beautiful Wetland - you don't have to remind me not to feed or approach alligators!

Wouldn't it be nice if all picnic tables had beautiful murals painted on them?!

We had a great view of the beautiful environment and wildlife from up on that second level.

We loved watching the birds and 

these little ducks diving for food!

Elder Dickman learned from the young missionaries that if we were in the area, Tia Juanita's Fish Camp was a great place to eat - and they were right!

So many good things to choose from and when would we be this close to fresh seafood again!

We miss our travel buddies - the Dickmans are so much fun!

Yummmmmm!

February was also the last of our health councils for each mission so we decided to capture what our zoom meetings were like. This was San Antonio - we will miss our meetings with these good people!!

Time for our second vaccine so we headed back up to Round Rock! They were so well organized and even though there were a lot more people this time it went quickly.

We can't say enough about the Law family making us feel like we had a home away from home!

This was a shrimp boil that Scott put on for his birthday. His parents (my sister Anne and her husband Veryl ) flew in for the occasion and we had a great time. They couldn't find crawfish so we had these jumbo shrimp instead - it was sooo good and made us feel like we were back in New Orleans!

We started hearing about a cold front that would be reaching all the way to Houston. The area presidency worked with the mission presidents and stake presidents to make sure that all of the missionaries would be prepared and have what they might need!

We got some extra food and water and a couple of flashlights just in case. They predicted that we could get 8 to 12 inches of snow which would have been terrible with little snow removal equipment. 

The cold temperatures seemed to go on and on and we started to see power and water outages.

We woke up to just an inch or two of snow on Monday morning and of course we decided we needed to go for a walk!

We bundled up in everything warm that we had and headed out.

Things were very quiet at the river but there were a few brave ducks swimming.

People were smart and didn't drive for the most part and it was very quiet!

Someone in our apartment complex made little snowmen and put them on the car hoods.

Our water and power went out on Tuesday - we were only without power for about 30 hours but the water was out for four days! Over 90 missionaries in our mission were moved because of power outages - some of them more than once. For the most part it was an adventure for them but they continued to find ways to teach the gospel!

Meanwhile back at the Law Law Land Ranch we were hearing of temperatures of 9 below zero as a low and widespread power outages. To make matters worse, Jessica Law was out of town and couldn't get home, so Scott was there with seven kids, no power and frozen wells! Here are the teenagers helping to get some water thawed for the animals. We knew that there would be many suffering statewide in homes that were not built for this kind of weather - many that were elderly and would have a hard time going anywhere. We prayed a lot!

We took a drive to Galveston on one of our p-days. The weather was still a bit chilly but it was a beautiful day. 

We made a quick trip to Joe's Crab Shack - pretty tasty!

The pier was quiet during the off season.

We can just imagine it bustling with people during the summer. I know I would want to come feel the ocean breeze during those humid summer days!

The wind was cold - we didn't last long on the beach! Besides we had to make it back for reservations that the Dickmans made at a charming French restaurant called Chez Nous in Humble Texas.

The restaurant was in a home in a quiet neighborhood and the food was amazing!

John and I got Chateaubriand.

This was an amazing crab/avocado appetizer John got.

We also had a goodbye dinner with our friend Laannia  - we are going to miss her!

Another full car! We had an apartment full of missionaries helping us which made it go fast. We had just enough room for Hermana Arnold's plant  - she lives in St. George and will be coming home next week.

A stop by the cable company to return our modem -

and we were off!

Since we got off in the late afternoon we stopped in San Antonio. This photo is deceiving because John drove through a blinding rain storm on I-10 with narrow lanes from road construction. The next morning was beautiful!

The next night we stayed in El Paso and used our last gift card to Rudy's Barbecue and Country Store. I think I had enough barbecue while we were in Texas to last me a good five years!

The next night we stayed in Mesa at Anne and Veryl's again and had delicious Mi Amigo's Mexican food before heading out on our final stretch. 

Our kids thought we might be too tired to have company on Thursday evening when we got home but we couldn't wait to see everyone (and they helped us unload the car!)

The week after we got home it was Spring Break for our grandkids so we took them up to Pine Valley over night - it was so great to be with them again!

We took this photo right before we met with our stake president to be released. (Can you see a hint of beard growing back?) What a great experience this mission has been. We started out still grieving over the death of our son Ian, and we couldn't have predicted the upheaval of COVID-19 and trying to oversee the health of so many young missionaries during a worldwide pandemic, but we wouldn't trade this mission experience for anything. One of the life-lessons we learned is that although the Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints is a world-wide church and the missionary effort is a global one, the actual work of salvation happens on a much smaller and intimate scale; taking place between each individual and the Savior Jesus Christ - one by one. He loves and cares for each one of us more than we can comprehend.  It was humbling to be a witness to this work and to help in a small way to bless and strengthen His young missionary force. The Savior has blessed and strengthened us in our effort and we have witnessed first hand how much he loves and watches over these missionaries. We hope to have the opportunity to serve again sometime in the future!