Just in from Brighton, MA.

the craziest thing ever happened on sunday! so we were at church- stake conference, and it was a broadcast. we had been there for like 45 minutes and the fire alarm goes off. no one really knew what it was. some priesthood holders went to go check it out, then came back in and asked everyone to evacuate. then i started to smell smoke. i thought no big deal ya know.i thought maybe i should leave my backpack but i decided otherwise. i left my Book of Mormon in the shelf where the hymns are, to open and look up scriptures they quoted in the broadcast. when we walked outside, there was smoke coming out of the roof but i thought it would be out in like 15 minutes top. then a huge flame came out and not all of the people were out. people in our wards were yelling for people to hurry. it moved so fast. the fire department came and started sawing out holes in the roof. windows were breaking from the heat.. the fire started spreading a ton, and the firemen were asked to evacuate the building. the last 3 firemen walked out and the roof over our chapel caved in! it was so freaky! we could see through the windows our chapel in flames! it was crazy! i could feel the heat on my face.

(haven't confirmed with Hilary--but that

looks like Sister Mahaffey on the left--

with a worried look on her face!)

we were all standing around watching. by now 8 or 9 fire trucks showed up and were aiming the hose at our steeple. we were right across the street and if that would've fallen, there woulda been alot of injuries. the fire would just not stop. they asked us to go down further to a park a little ways away. the neighbors next door were afraid the fire would spread to their house, and another neighbor volunteered their house for storage of their valuables. they brought out all this art work worth thousands of dollars, and we helped them take it into their neighbors home. then the firemen brought out things that were on the lower half of our church that might be valuable to us. like books that were in the institute bldg on the opposite side of the chapel of course. we all formed an assembly line to the quaker church across the street that was kind enough to let us store our books and stuff. among all the books, they brought out some art work. one, was a picture of Christ that was above the couch on the outside of the chapel wall-just before you walked into the chapel. when they brought it out there were no damages done to it! everyone cheered and was so happy! it was amazing. the wall all around the pictures, the wall the picture was on is completely black except this rectangle where the picture was is completely white! amazing! another thing that was untouched was the baptismal font! all around it is black, but no damage to the font. so many little tender mercies. it was neat to share with all the people that were watching little things about our church one in which i wanted to save to the end for the spirit to continue to be here. and i'm now shaking because it was so cool!!!!

so sister dahlin and i walked by the park to pick up our backpacks after we helped the neighbors, and sister dahlin whispers "thats jennifer". so let me take a step back- we had heard how ben is in town, and how he lives close to our church bldg-ben affleck that is. sister dahlin is litterally jennifer garners twin, and #1 fan, so we thought how fun it would be if we saw either one of them! so continuing on, we go and just stand by her, very casually- it was perfect. right place right time i tell you. we start talking about how crazy it is that our church is on fire and we introduce ourselves i say "hi. i'm sister worthen." she goes "hi. jennifer. this is my daughter violet." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! WE KNOW!!!! haha but we were really chill about the whole thing of course. then she asked us if we were in there when the fire happened, so we told her the whole story. to jennifer garner-i don't know if i mentioned that. haha jk. but just as i was about to ask her(sister dahlin was silent and kept mouthin to me"oh my gosh!" with a huge grin on her face) if she had heard of our church before, she said "excuse me". and walked away. when we turned away from her, we noticed everyone looking over and smiling. people started to see that it was her. sad. she came out later with violet and stood in the midst of a bunch of mormons and just kinda kept to herself while some ppl around her took some shots(including myself-just the back of her tho... i had to!). mitt romney came as well, but i didn't see him. too bad. so yeah thats my crazy story! the whole day was high intensity! it was definitely journal worthy. but we still don't know where we're going to meet this sunday. our stake president got a call from pres packer, and his son answered and said "he's watching a church burn down." i don't know how old the kid is.. so cute tho. but yeah eventful. this was the first lds chapel built in massachusetts. we're really blessed to have saved all that we did, and that no one was hurt. except my missionaray BOM is gone. once they release the scene to the church, i'm going to go try to look for it. i hope i can find it. all the construction people told me everything in the chapel is gone, but i have hope.ha and we still don't know if it was electrical or arson. it's under investigation. i sure just hope it was electrical-i think it was.

{Editor's note--we will let you know the state of Hilary's scriptures!}