Saturday morning, at 3am the Harbour Pointe LDS church building was burned down by an arsonist. Hard to believe, and still shocking to think about. This is what it looked like before, just a year ago.
This is what it looked like as of Saturday afternoon. Just the sight of it was gut wrenching. I woke up to a text from Leslie asking if I got Dad's. I looked, and he said around 5:30 that the building had been burned down. Jason and Kristie were already awake so I ran out of our room, already in tears, telling Jason what had apparently happened. I just couldn't even wrap my head around the thought. All I could think about was all the memories I have there. I grew up there. Some of the last memories I have of my mom are there. Jason asked me out on my 16th birthday there, we attended Seminary there, our wedding reception was there. The friends and family I spent time with there. Most important of all though, I gained a testimony of Jesus Christ there and have built a foundation in myself that cannot be taken away. So it is with our faith. You can burn down a building, but it'll only make us bond together and grow.
This was truly an awful thing to see. Holding back tears was absolutely impossible. We went to see at around 11am, and my Dad was still there. He's in the Bishopric so he had been there since 5am. Other members of the ward were there as well, and all we could do was embrace and watch as the building was still smoldering.
Right Side
Back side
Here's an article with some pictures of it on fire that are pretty unbelievable.
Devin and Leslie ended up on the news with KOMO 4 that night -
Dad & I ended up in the paper with the Everett Herald.
As we live in Everett now, we've been attending a building in this area for the past year, so I just can't imagine still being there, and losing everything. Luckily, Harbour Pointe ward (the ward I grew up in) will be attending our building in Everett indefinitely and we'll be pushing our ward back a half hour. So it will be nice to have everyone I love in the building we're at now. I hope we can help them out in any way possible. Please keep the Harbour Pointe ward and the Beverly Park ward in your prayers.
3 comments:
I saw this on the news here in Utah. What a horrible event, and it's so crazy that it was your building that you grew up in. I'm so sorry, Candace. It's pretty hard for us to believe here too.
So sorry to hear the news. It brings me sadness even though I've never visited the ward. It's always a tough when something you love is destroyed. You're in my prayers.
Hi there. That building was BEAUTIFUL, though I did not care much for the placement of that "generic steeple" that they must of done back in the 90s like was so common with many older buildings. Did they end up re-building this one? Any photos of it if they did?
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