President Eyring Visits Florida with a Message of Love, Appreciation, and Hope
Contributed By Scott Taylor, Church News contributor
President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, shakes hands with a volunteer in a work crew cleaning up a Jacksonville, Florida, residence Saturday, September 16, 2017.
Article Highlights
- President Eyring came to Florida to help people feel that the Lord is with them.
- In addition to the Church’s disaster relief work, many Church leaders have made visits to areas affected by the hurricanes.
- A feeling of unity accompanied volunteers as they worked together to help those in need.
“I’ve heard of the idea of the city of Zion, where the people take care of themselves, where there’s no poor among them, and I’m seeing that spirit here.” —President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency
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NAPLES, FLORIDA
A week after Hurricane Irma cut a devastating southwest-to-northeast swath through the state of Florida, President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, followed a similar direction, spreading a message of love, appreciation, and hope through his words and his presence.
“That’s why you come,” President Eyring told the Church News while stopping to salute a crew of volunteers sporting the bright-yellow Mormon Helping Hands T-shirts while removing fallen trees and limbs and debris enveloping a Naples, Florida, residence Saturday afternoon, September 16.
The intent, he explained, is to try and extend the feeling that the Lord is with them and appreciates and admires them. “I think the people here feel that,” he said. “And so by coming, I think I helped them feel it.”
While the Church is prompt to respond with aid and relief work in the face of natural disasters, it is noteworthy that in a span of 15 days, two members of the First Presidency made separate—and rare—visits to hurricane-ravaged areas. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf toured parts of Houston earlier in the month, after Hurricane Harvey deluged southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana with massive rainfall (see related article).
President Eyring said his Florida visit allowed him to witness that those he met and others who gathered around him in work details and worship services have a love for the Lord and a love for their fellow man.
“I’ve heard of the idea of the city of Zion, where the people take care of themselves, where there’s no poor among them, and I’m seeing that spirit here,” he said. “It’s wonderful, and it has touched my heart to see how wonderful the people are—both the Latter-day Saints and the others I’ve met who are working so well together.”
A day after visiting the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and St. Thomas to witness damages from Irma’s category 5 forces and uplift the Saints there (see related article), President Eyring first stopped in Naples on Florida’s Gulf-side coast, where Irma—downgraded to category 4 but still packing a wallop with its 142-mph winds—left a wake of destruction September 10 and 11.
In Naples, he visited the Golden Gate meetinghouse, one of a number of Church buildings throughout Florida that had been turned into staging centers. There he visited with individuals compiling and distributing thousands of work orders for volunteer crews, and he chatted with those who were inventorying storehouse supplies and others helping neighbors and community members seeking relief to fill much-appreciated boxes of food and relief items.
President Eyring was accompanied by Elder Jörg Klebingat, a General Authority Seventy, and Bishop Dean M. Davies, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, both of whom interacted with volunteer crews and spoke at the large gatherings at the meetinghouses.
“I’m proud to be wearing the yellow shirt—to be part of this wonderful kind of people,” said President Eyring, as he and others traveling with him donned Helping Hands tees while among volunteers.
Following the visit to the Naples cleanup site, he returned to the meetinghouse for an early afternoon devotional with about 400 individuals who had been working at sites earlier in the morning, were preparing to go out on later crew assignments, or were taking a Spirit-filled break while doing both.
In Naples and other parts of southern Florida from the Keys to Fort Myers, Irma easily snapped trunks and limbs of trees and simply uprooted others, doing the same with metal signs, poles, and structures by bending and twisting some and toppling others. The hurricane was blamed for nearly 40 deaths in the state.
Florida experienced extensive power outages from the storm’s onset, with about a quarter of the state—including much of Naples—still without electricity a week later and well into the next.
Heavy rains coupled with the storm surges flooded much of the area, including Jacksonville in the state’s northeast area, where record flood levels were recorded. Storm and sewage systems backed up in Naples, forcing water to be shut off in some parts as officials feared the threat of contaminated water and dysentery.
During Irma’s rage, some members and missionaries took refuge in meetinghouses—President Joseph Lindsay of the Fort Myers Florida Stake and his family joined 30-plus missionaries weathering the storm in the Fort Myers stake center, while 45 members of the stake’s Bahia (Spanish) Ward rode out the hurricane for more than two days in the Golden Gate meetinghouse in Naples.
Later Saturday afternoon after time in Naples, President Eyring’s group visited with volunteers at a work site in Jacksonville, about 350 miles northeast from Naples. And the next morning, President Eyring presided over a Sunday morning, September 17, sacrament meeting at the Jacksonville East stake center, where 700 gathered—some in Sunday dress, others in work clothes, and some changing from the former into the latter after the service.
In fact, that stake center—with food supplies loaded on the stage, box generators stacked in the back of the cultural hall, the parking lot lined with water, cleaning kits, shovels, and tarps—was the site of two sacrament meetings that morning. Nearly 1,000 workers gathered for a brief session at 6:45 a.m. before heading out to help in volunteer crews averaging about 10 workers each in Jacksonville, where wind damage—while substantial—was less than the Keys, Naples, and Fort Myers, but flooding reached historic levels.
“What you’ve done during this time of difficulty and with others around you, a lot of you have forgotten of yourselves and gone to work in doing what the Lord would do—you were the Lord’s servants,” said President Eyring in his sacrament meeting remarks in Jacksonville.
“I want you to know that I admire all that you’ve done—and the Lord admires you,” he added. “It may not have been everything you could have done, but you did what you could do. And you’ll surprisingly find yourself the next to do even more, because you have grown—and in His service, you grow, you’re magnified, you’re getting better.”
President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, left, waves at a volunteer—pausing from cutting up a fallen tree on a rooftop—who takes a photo during Hurricane Irma relief efforts in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
Volunteers clean up around a fallen tree on a residential rooftop, 1 of 55 crews of Mormon Helping Hands volunteers serving in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
Volunteers unload a semi full of cleaning kits to be used in Hurricane Irma relief at the Golden Gate meetinghouse in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, greets women helping to fill food orders during Hurricane Irma relief efforts at the Golden Gate meetinghouse in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, reviews an inventory list of food items and supplies with a volunteer participating in Hurricane Irma relief efforts at the Golden Gate meetinghouse in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
A volunteer stands in ankle-deep water left over from Hurricane Irma while cutting fallen trees at a residence in Naples, Florida, Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
Bishop Dean M. Davies, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, speaks to about 350 volunteer workers in an afternoon devotional at the Golden Gate meetinghouse in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, September 16, 2017. Photo by Scott Taylor.
