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
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