Week 69....Vintar Philippines

Hi. We had a super huge typhoon :) It was a class 5 which is a higher rating than both hurricane Katrina and typhoon Yolanda. But it turned out to be all hype. The Typhoon hit Cagayan (where my last area was)  and messed things up over there but then it slowed down when it came to Ilocos where I am at.  Makes sense because there are some pretty wicked people in some parts of Cagayan haha. Oops is that bad for me to say? But President evacuated all the missionaries out of Cagayan so they are all fine.But anyways It wasn't super bad here in Ilocos. President evacuated us to Laoag a day before the typhoon hit just to be safe, so we stayed in the ZLs and APs apartment in Laoag which is this huge blue house with three stories on it.  It was pretty matibay so we weren't scared. We chilled on the third floor and watched the typhoon as you can see in the video I sent.  But yah WE WERE SO BORED. We kinda wanted the typhoon to be crazy like they hyped it up to be. I was expecting to be bucketing out water all day and swimming through a flood and scooping up little children and dogs on the way and stuff, but we actually just stayed inside and ate PB and Js for 3 and a half days haha. 

Our apartment in Vintar was fine and the area is all in tact. One of the members houses got blown over by the wind but they were already building a new one anyway haha. They are fine and happy.  Its already pretty much back to normal here and its back to work.  In Cagayan they wont have electricity for a couple weeks though I heard. My last area, Lasam, got hit pretty hard I heard. There were just a few people that died in the typhoon but that was because they didn't want evacuate from there house. PEOPLE IF THERE IS EVER A CATASTROPHIC EVENT, PLEASE JUST EVACUATE. DON'T BE DUMB AND WORRY ABOUT YOUR MATERIAL POSSESSIONS AND CRAP LIKE THAT. GET YOUR BUM AND YOUR FAMILY'S TO THE CHURCH! 90 percent of the time when people die is because they are dumb and don't follow instructions. Just putting that out there. 

Also don't forget about your 72 hour kits! 

That is my spiritual message for this week! 72 Hour kits are important. Haha.

But thank you all for the prayers! They worked cause we are all totally fine.  I love you all and I am looking forward to this week. We're all back to work as usual and the Filipinos are still smiling and laughing just despite the typhoons, as usual haha.  Oh and have a good Halloween :)

 

-Elder Andersen