“When something like this happens, we all need one another,” Elder Rasband toldresidents of California as he walked through the ashes that comprised all that was left of their homes. “The old adage ‘no man is an island, no man stands alone’—that thought has come to my mind here this morning as I’ve seen how these wonderful brothers and sisters who have lost every earthly possession have just loved being with each other and look to each other for love and comfort.”
Emotion overcame Elder Ronald A. Rasband Saturday moments after he began speaking with a small group of Mormons at the edge of the charred remains that had once been their homes.
Perhaps the visceral combination of surveying the vast destruction while simultaneously hearing the homeowners’ accounts of escaping the Oct. 9 wildfire with little more than their lives drew out the tears.
Before long, Elder Rasband’s wife, Sister Melanie Rasband, was dabbing her own eyes with one hand. She wrapped her free arm around a woman who is counted among the thousands who lost their homes to the recent fires of northern California.