In every change, He faithful will remain

Hello Everyone.

This week has been crazy to say the least. We are all in Manila right now, but my heart goes out to all my fellow missionaries who suffered more than I did. But I testify that we are all safe through, and only through, the power of our Heavenly Father. I can't even name how many of my missionary friends told me that their apartment was literally the only apartment standing on the whole street. My batchmate, S. Kalonihea, had an apartment that was connected to another one. The connected apartment fell, but their apartment is still standing. I saw a picture of my first DL's apartment, and literally the whole street was devastated except his. There was this group of 10 sisters who's apartment flooded to the very top. There were bars on the windows and they were stuck inside a house that was rapidly filling with water. One of the sisters had the prompting to go to the laundry room, where they found that there was a hole in the roof. This sister punched a bigger hole in the wall and they climbed to the roof, where they lay chest to chest to avoid hypothermia. The flood waters were still rising, and they would have not been able to remain on the roof, but they said a prayer and the flood waters immediately stopped. My best friend Elder Lowe is one of the missionaries who found the member of the American air force who secured four back and forth flights to Manila for all of our missionaries who desperately needed a ride in a city where everyone was bribing the airport so that their flights kept getting bumped. While they were still stuck in Tacloban, the prisoners broke out of the town jail. The missionaries in Tacloban had to walk home in the dark after this happened. All they could do is say a prayer and hope that they could make it home safely with all the criminals free and all the other people driven crazy by lack of food. I testify that it was because of your prayers, and all of our prayers, that all of us are safe and sound. We as a mission all suffered in different ways from this disaster, and we as a mission have felt so much comfort in all that has been done in our behalf.

 

This week has been really interesting. We left Allen without saying goodbye to anyone and took a ferry to picol,and then a 12-13 hour drive to Manila. Here we have stayed at the temple patron house and been fed and cared for by the MTC. What has ended up happening is that the missionaries who have only 3 or less months less are going home, and the rest are reassigned to different missions in the MTC. My new assignment is the Cebu East mission, and I will stay there until the Tacloban mission is up and running. No one knows how long that will take. The MTC president initially said 6 months, but there really is no way to tell.

 

I want to again say thanks for all your prayers. I would like to ask you to do the favor of continuing your prayers for those still in Tacloban. The hurricane is over, but the destruction, lack of food, and lack of electricity or oil remains. They need a miracle to recover. Also the missionaries who lost all their supplies and had to see such terrible things. We try to help them but they have lost a lot.Thank you so much. I love you all very much.

Sister Sprouse

 

There is no title for this week

Family. I am so happy for finally getting to write you. We were supposed to write you ASAP but the whole city along with the other cities near us are in complete brown out. I was so anxious ever since Thursday that you didn't know that I wasn't floating around somewhere facedown.. As in, I had this huge pit in my stomach ever since then. Especially because I thought you weren't getting a lot of sleep, mom. I found out that they had contacted you this morning at like 9 oclock and I just cried because I was so relieved. Right now we were lucky enough to find the one internet cafe in the whole town with a generator and internet.

The thing is, I was never in any danger at all. We were ordered to stay in our apartment but we only had strong winds and a little rain. We were very blessed in Allen. But it is so hard to think about all the cute kids and wonderful people that I met the week I was in Tacloban. Also, my very best friend from the MTC was literally assigned 15 minutes away from Tacloban. I have been worrying about him and praying for him and his family all week. I just keep thinking about how you all got a phone call and how maybe his parents haven't because he isn't yet accounted for.. it makes my heart sick. To be honest, all of this makes my heart sick. There were so many poor little kids that came up to me while I was there asking for money because they needed food. I am sure that they had no shelter at all. We are about 8-10 hours away from Tacloban so it's hard to imagine, but I remember being in America how impersonal it was to hear about the storms, even though you felt sympathy. Now it is definitely personal. It is hard to write how I feel right now. Another typhoon is coming and if it were to hit Allen I would be so devastated. 

I want to share one happy story at least from before we knew about all of these terrible things. We had a baptism for this sweet little girl, Shaina. She is 9-turning 10 tomorrow, and was born premature so she is not quite right in the head. She is really adorable though. We finished a lesson with her family and asked if anyone had any questions, so she turned to S. Woodruff and asked, "why is your nose so big?" Then she told us she wanted to be baptised and she knew how to pray. So we set up her baptism. It was the day after the typhoon so we hadn't had the opportunity to plan  for it. So we got to the church, and there were no elders and no bishop. Also no water for the font in the church. So we went to find the elders then they called us (we randomly had phone service in a small patch of the road) and they were coming so we asked if they had buckets to get water from the bumba (well) They had only one so we went to get ours. There we decided to baptise her (and them, the elders had two baptisms also) in the ocean, so we went from there to find the bishop. We walked to his house, then his young son said he thought that he had gone to the church. On the way to the church, he passed us on his motor in a jersey back to his house. We were on a motor, so we went back to the church, then to his house again to get him. Thankfully he was going to the church as soon as we arrived, and we all went to the baptism. S. Woodruff and I had to give the talks, and I had to lead the music too, so it was not very well put together. But as we went out to the dagat(ocean) and I saw our Heavenly Father's little child get ready to enter the waters of baptism, I felt such peace. It felt like the anxiety before was making this baptism even more beautiful. I know that Heavenly Father is proud of little Shaina for her decision. 

We are going to Manila probably tomorrow for I don't know how long. Hopefully I will be able to email soon and let you know what is happening. Thank you for your emails and your prayers and I am sorry if you worried too much. I love you all so much. 

Sister Sprouse