Tomball, Texas • Among a crowd of 800 worshippers — some wearing boots and many more donning bright yellow shirts — one of the Mormon church’s top leaders reminded members gathered here that they show their faith by serving others in crisis.
All around them, examples of that very crisis closed in — destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey, one of the worst storms to hit the U.S.
Yet, despite their surroundings, the message from Dieter F. Uchtdorf, the second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Sunday focused on encouragement and service in difficult times, regardless of religion.
“This is the sign of true saints who are helping to move forward and helping others,” Uchtdorf said. “Regardless of who they are, of which religion they are coming from.
“This is our mission, to serve,” he said. “It’s our mission to help others.”
Uchtdorf spoke Sunday at the Cypress Stake in Tomball, Texas, where four wards had gathered to worship. It was the first service for the stake since Hurricane Harvey destroyed about 100,000 homes here, and Uchtdorf encouraged leaders to ditch their neckties to lighten the atmosphere a bit.
After the service, Uchtdorf put on a yellow shirt that read “Mormon Helping Hands,” also worn by hundreds in the church, many of whom walked into the hot Texas sun in search for homes to help rebuild.
Uchtdorf toured damaged buildings and neighborhoods that included the Houston Texas Temple, which sits in a neighborhood that became severely flooded during a record 50-plus inches of rain that inundated parts of the region.
As he and Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé entered the temple, which still had some water inside, a dank smell rushed out toward a group of reporters that wasn’t allowed in the building. Six other LDS buildings have been flooded and 20 more received minor damage, according to a release from the church.
Caussé and Uchtdorf later visited the Wimbledon Estates neighborhood north of Houston, which saw severe flooding after the storm.
Standing outside on the narrow streets of his neighborhood, Patrick Dougal recalled a harrowing night waiting out the rising water that forced him, his wife, Tiffanie, and two daughters upstairs to wait for help.
They brought what they could upstairs, where they listened to the eerie sounds of furniture falling while the water overtook the first floor of the house. It was the first time his house had ever flooded.
“We went downstairs and saw the water was now four feet,” Dougal said. “We looked outside and saw the water was rising so fast that now we couldn’t leave.”
The following day, the family was rescued by boat, which drove right up to the front door of the house.
The Dougals stood Sunday in the street where the front yards of neighboring houses for miles in each direction were littered with the guts of their homes — drywall, insulation, carpeting, washers, dryers, toys and blankets, you name it.
But the Dougals weren’t alone. Moving in and out of nearby houses were dozens of people in yellow shirts and boots who helped clear about 65 houses.
Caussé said in an interview that the church responds to devastation across the globe, noting the recent mudslide in Sierra Leone and flooding elsewhere.
The disaster in Houston brought some of the church’s top leaders, including Elder J. Devn Cornish of the Presidency of the Seventy, in part because the region has about 85,000 members. Of those, more than 2,800 have been displaced and nearly 800 reported damage to their homes from flooding.
“It was very important to be in Houston because it’s one of the natural disasters that has been closest to the members of our faith,” Caussé said. “Wherever people are in need, we are ready to help.”
Flooding lingers in pockets of Houston, and some cities hit later during the storm remain inundated. As tens of thousands of Houstonians rip the guts out of their homes, try to remove or prevent mold from spreading, and regain normalcy, there will be months of work ahead and plenty to do in Texas.
“It is the symbol of the purpose of the church,” Uchtdorf said. “To serve God, and to serve fellow men. By this, we show that we love God and we love fellow men.”