The 129th good thing about Lagos: Being here after the hurricane in Texas lets us be the recipient of love in action

I always knew that we worshipped with a lot of really good people at home in Katy, but over the the past few days I've seen evidence of their good hearts in their service for us. Hurricane Ike tore through the Houston area with a fury, and our yard wasn't spared. We had a large ornamental pear tree in the back yard break off into the pool. We also lost some fence. The yard was a mess, and power was out in the house for a couple of days. It could have been a lot worse -- if the tree had fallen on the house and damaged it, I probably would have had to return to Houston to deal with the mess. But church friends notified me of the damage and reassured me that the tree and the pool and the yard would be taken care of. We've never been the receipient of such service before. The Sunday church services were cancelled due to no power at the building so, after the rains stopped, there were work crews at our house with chain saws cutting up the tree. I think they worked for a couple of days on it. Today there was a group of 10 youth who worked hard to clean out our pool. I know everyone who helped at our house had their own homes and yards to clean up, and they were still willing to take on the challenge of a big project for someone else. I don't know how I can ever thank everybody who worked so hard for us -- I don't even know the names of all who pitched in. But I do know that they were keeping a promise to bear the burdens of others that they made when they chose to be a follower of Christ. We made a contribution to the LDS Humanitarian Services Fund in honor of and gratitude to our rescuers. This fund provides emergency relief to many in dire situations who don't have ready angels in waiting. We will try even harder to look for opportunities to pay their service forward in more personal ways to those in need of help around us.