Life in the dark

This last week the great state of CT, where we live, was in darkness, quite literally. Due to a very heavy, wet and fast falling snow we lost power around 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 29th. Fortunately we had a few moments warning as our lights were flickering to get a meal on the table before they went out. Now the first night wasn't bad because we all piled into our room and cuddled on the bed while watching a movie on the computer. We aren't strangers to having our power out since it went out 2 months ago when Hurricane Irene hit our town, however it was only for 24 hours. Looking back that was nothing! On Sunday morning when we woke up my daughter said the cutest thing, "mom, look we have power!" She thought since the room was bright (from the sun) that we had our power back, no luck though, it was out and it was worse than we thought. Church was cancelled and we had no cell phone signals except for on the husband's blackberry. With no electricity we had to be creative with the activities for the kids to keep them entertained, sad but true. At one point our daughter asked if we could put 2 batteries in the TV to make it work since everything else that had batteries worked, it was so cute. We ended up pulling games out of the closet that we had never played before and having a lot of fun. Our second night of no power we decided to sleep downstairs near our gas fireplace (a great blessing) since the upstairs was freezing cold. Now the trick was finding a way to blow up our air mattress since the pump needed to be plugged in. Again, another blessing was remembering that our car had an outlet and so we were able to blow the mattress up and set up camp by the fireplace. Not knowing when the power would be back up was the hardest part of it all and knowing that we weren't completely prepared. We did not own a camp stove which would have made life a lot easier and pleasant during this experience. Fortunately we have awesome friends who brought us hot food one night, a home teacher who ended up letting us borrow his camp stove so that we could boil water to wash dishes, make a meal and bathe the girls, which we did one night. All of us girls piled into the bathtub with about 2 inches of warm water and cleaned up. There were days that the girls and I would get in the car to drive around to charge the cell phone, listen to music and to stay warm. During all of this I was able to see and experience true charity, the pure love of Christ. People who had power opened up their homes to feed us, let us take hot showers, do a load of laundry and just be in a place where there was light, heat and good company. It was a very stressful time but I actually really enjoyed being with all of our friends and growing closer as a family. Life was a bit simpler in that nobody cared what anyone looked like (I was sporting my sweats and snow boots and a hat for a couple of days before getting to shower), we were entertained by good conversation, games and watching the kids play, and everyone was going through the same trial and learning from it together. This Saturday, November 5th we still didn't have power and so the girls and I flew to CO to be with my family while my husband flew out of the country on business. He wasn't about to leave his girls alone with no power while he was gone, what an awesome husband I have! I needed to get away and wanted to be with family after such a stressful and emotional time. Mentally I was able to handle the situation and did what was needed to be done to care for my family, but after a week of no power and still not knowing when we would get it back my emotions surfaced and I was exhausted and wanted someone to take care of me. This seemed to be a mutual feeling among many of my friends. I believe as of this morning our power is on! What a humbling yet strengthening experience. We truly need to be prepared for the unexpected and listen to what we have been taught over and over by the living prophet. One thing this has taught me is that I never what to live in the dark again, literally or spiritually. Each day I need to strengthen and prepare myself both physically and spiritually so I can help those around me if necessary. The people who helped us will forever be remembered and blessed for what they did for us. We are all here on this earth to help one another and we have been taught by the greatest of them all, our Savior, he taught by example as well as by word. We are to love our neighbors and to lift one another's burdens and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. This experience has changed me and I hope to be able to always remember what I have been taught and what I have felt through it all.