Sunday, May 16, 2010

Bucket Brigade!

Thursday Jesse and I went running, then to a goodbye party, then out to water a greenhouse that he is watering for a lady he knows. He watered and we left and went home. Friday we had a branch "camp out" in the backyard of one of the presidency member's house. We were watching Avatar in the backyard and around 11 the thought hit me "I wonder if Jesse watered today." He was half asleep, but I nudged him and asked him if he had watered. He hadn't. So around 11:30 we left to go water the greenhouse. We started down the ramp into the greenhouse (I can't see worth crap in the dark, but Jesse can see pretty well). I saw that the ramp looked sort of dark and distorted but I couldn't figure out what was going on. Jesse goes "Oh no, please no, please no...." He forced the door open, waded in and turned the light on. There was 2 feet (maybe a little more) of standing water in the 500-600 square foot greenhouse. It had seeped out the door and was still going up. Jesse turned off the faucet and started to stress out. He felt so responsible for what had happened. What actually had happened was that the hose was turned off, like normal, but the pressure from the faucet being on must have forced the hose off the nozzle. The water could have been running for up to 22 hours...although I think there would have been more water if that was the case. We'll guesstimate with 12 hours or so. We called back to where we were staying and 8 of the other singles came over with a couple 5 gallon buckets and for 2 1/2 hours we bucketed water out. Someone filled the bucket up, then handed it to the next person, who handed to the person standing on the ground above (the greenhouse is set pretty well down in the ground...) who handed it to another person, who handed it to someone who dumped the water over the wall and then handed to someone who brought it back to the first person. Apparently we dumped one bucket every 6 seconds or so. We took a couple breaks and laughed and had a good time. At 2:30 when we called it a night we had gotten it from being knee deep down to the upper-middle of my calf. We put a small pump in and let it run for awhile while we were working, then left it to keep working during the night. We came back at about 9 Saturday morning to find there was still about 8 inches of standing water--a great difference compared to where we had left it. We left the pump running and Jesse took me home). The Lady's son went over to the house sometime after we left and put two bigger pumps in which we were supposed to go turn off on our way out to Jason's that night. When we got to the greenhouse, the front was without water, but the back still had 2inches of standing water, so we left the pump running, planning to come back and turn it off on our way back to town. We went to Jason's and Jesse and I left there maybe at 20 till midnight? We pulled up at the lady's house and I started getting this bad feeling about being there. I said to Jesse "I feel like I shouldn't be here..." All we had to do was unplug the pump--it would take 5 minutes tops, so I was going to sit in the car while Jesse went, but I still didn't feel right. I went with Jesse toward the back and as soon as we were in the gate the feeling intensified. I'm pretty sure my grip tightened on Jesse's hand and then Jesse asked me to clarify the feeling I had. He asked if I had a bad feeling about going to the greenhouse. I said yes, and he said that once we were in the backyard that he felt like we should turn around and leave. So, we did. My stomach was feeling ill and upset and I was still feeling uneasy upon arriving home and for a good 30 to 45 minutes after getting home. I honestly don't know what would have, or could have happened if we hadn't listened to that prompting, but I have never felt an impression that strong telling me not to do something. I am still a little freaked out by what could have happened and part of me wishes I could know what I avoided. Even when Jesse was dropping me off I felt like I need to hurry inside and he needed to get home. I called him a few minutes later to make sure he made it home and he told me that he had a feeling like he shouldn't hang behind, that he needed to hurry home. I don't know what kind of thing could have happened, I'm just glad that I didn't have to go through it, although I'm pretty sure I was pretty dang close to experiencing whatever it was.

I'm grateful for being able to receive promptings from the Holy Ghost and for the protection and help that was given to us and for the many blessings that came during these experiences. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ do love us and they are watching out for us.

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