Tuesday, March 17, 2015

WEEK 27 "My First Typhoon.. Check!"

Friends and family,

The typhoon did come through Mindoro. I have never seen so much rain come down so fast before. Everyone is SAFE. We didn't have any major problems and we haven't had any major ones since. We have had a couple more brown-outs lasting for about 3 or 4 hours longer than normal, but other that that things are well. A couple other parts of the mission got hit pretty badly and are still without power but they its been said that they should be getting it back fairly soon.

We were never informed about the typhoon until about 9 hours before it hit because no one really knew it was coming. We found out in a phone call from the AP's that those being transferred were going to be leaving a day earlier so they could hopefully catch a boat to the main land before the storm hit. No one thought it was going to be very bad, which compared to others, it wasn't, so nothing extra really needed to be done. The next morning we got a call for the district leader that we needed to make sure that we had water, 72 hour kits, candles, and anything else we needed and then to just watch and stay in if it got too bad. We had to go to the store to buy some things that we wanted, not needed which was a good thing because when we went out, everything was boarded up and there was no one on the streets ha, it was a ghost town. The storm came and we stayed inside. It lasted for three days with continuous. We went out when we got the text that the storm had passed and the streets were flooded but the homes from what we could see were fine. I'm not sure what it was, but those three days being stuck in the house were so long ha. 

I remember preparing to come out and talking to a returned missionary form out here in the San Pablo mission. The conversation somehow came to what the weather and temperature was like at night. He said the only time he used sheets when he slept was when a typhoon came in just one time on his entire mission. I asked him what the temperature was and he said it was the low 80's and I had to laughed a little because at that time that was still pretty warm. I can now share that same story. It was cool enough one of those three nights to sleep with sheets at 83 degrees haha. Out here being used to 95 degrees constant and humility through the roof your body thinks anything lower is cold.

The Lord watches over his missionaries. Thank you for your prays. They have again been answered. I love you all.

Elder O'Neil