Typhoon Lando

Hello friends and family,

Just checking in to say that I am still alive and well. Many of you know and have been informed that we have been hit by a category four typhoon this week and all the missionaries in the Cauayan Mission and several of the surrounding missions are safe and accounted for. 

This week has been a really long and eventful week. It is my first full week as an STL in my new area of Ilagan. On Wednesday, we were able to go to the mission home for some training on how to be a part of missionary leadership. It was a lot of fun. We learned a lot of good and interesting things, but the best part was that we got pizza for lunch. I miss pizza. :)

On Thursday and Friday I had my first companion exchanges as an STL. I was so nervous because I know that they are important training moments for missionaries. I wanted to really help the sisters and to inspire them, like the STLs who have inspired me. On Thursday my companion was Sister Edrington, and on Friday my companion was Sister Baker. They are two of the four sisters in Alinguigan. We actually saw a lot of them this week because, after staying in our apartment for the companion exchanges, we asked them to stay with us for an additional few days because their apartment is in one of the flooding areas.

 We learned of the impending storm on Wednesday and spent the next few days preparing. We made sure that our 72 hour kits were ready and we had flashlights and candles ready. It rained constantly from Thursday to Sunday, even though the actual storm didn't hit until early Sunday morning. The power didn't go out until Saturday night and didn't come back on until around noon on Sunday. Our church service was canceled, so we attended the Sunday service for Ward two. The church was open to all who needed to evacuate in order to be safe. On Sunday we had learned that one of our Recent Convert's house was washed away in the flood. We could barely see the top of her roof in the flood water. She was able to move all of her earthy possessions out and now lives in the Church building until we can find a place for her to go. The flooding here is really bad. What was once a river here in Ilagan now looks like Willard Bay. I'm not even exaggerating on that one. 

On Sunday, even after the typhoon was mostly over, we received some more bad news. Magat Dam (the place we had our zone activity a few months ago) is over flowed! There is so much water that the Dam is in danger of bursting. They are now releasing water from the Dam from four different gates to control the immense amount of water inside. They did so every four hours, meaning that the flooding was even worse. We were safe and had the opportunity to "go about doing good" to help people move all their things from their homes to the church and help them to evacuate. We went to help and only spent an hour there helping in one of our areas, when the flood water had blocked both ways out. We had to take off our shoes and wade in almost waist-deep water in order to evacuate ourselves! Luckily we were guided to leave when we did. Otherwise we would have had to swim back to our apartment! But we are safe now, and the worst is over. Hopefully we will be able to help all the people here who were affected by the storm. Please pray for all of us here in the Philippines!

Love,

Sister Lewis