Hey family!I bet you´re all worried sick about me. Haha. Just kidding. So I finally am able to send you all details of what happened this week. In Chile, a ¨temblor¨ is a tremor that´s less than 7.0 and a ¨terremoto¨ is above 7.1. On Tuesday night we stopped by a birthday party for one of the elder´s investigators that we taught a few times. They work-own a house that helps immegrants work things out when they get here in Chile and a few of our investigators are living there right now. We had just finished with the birthday party and were downstairs talking to Elmer (the dad of Jacqui´s kids) about the Book of Mormon and suddenly everything started to shake. At first it was just like a temblor so we just sat there but then it didn´t stop and everyone was freaking out (there were probably about 20 people in that room or right next to it) and running to the door. I wasn´t scared, but you could definitely tell the difference that this wasn´t just another small temblor and I looked at Jacqui´s kids and they were really scared so I lifted my hands and said ¨no hands!¨ but it wasn´t like the other time where I was super excited about the shaking- it was like a movie- you could see the walls and ceiling shake.
THen all the sudden the lights shut off and you could see fireworks outside so we got up and moved towards the door. There was this big black lady from Colombia that had her hands in the air and was yelling ¨Everybody pray! Lord! How could you let this happen! Forgive us Lord!¨ which was really funny but made my companion freak out and start sobbing. We got ourside and saw the elder run around the corner (they had left like a minute before the earthquake started). I was trying to help my companion calm down but even after we were outside you could feel the earth shaking and could see the houses and the light poles shake. I can{t really remember what happened at this point or how we got seperated from everyone but suddenly we were walking with the elders back to the pension (after making sure everyone was okay). We made a plan to run back to the pension and then head to Loa, the stake center. We ran in the apartment, grabbed a bag and shoved clothes, our journals, a little bit of food and a few other things and met up with the elders and made our way to Loa. It was funny because I had JUST unpacked my emergency bag that I made when the first temblor happened the day before. Bummer.
When we were walking to Loa, it was pitch black and people were everywhere. I don{t know how there weren´t any accidents because every car was heading top speed to the mountains. We got to Loa and there we found out that it had been an 8.0 terremoto (apparently it was actually an 8.2 but at that time they said 8.0 and in Arica it was 7.9. Apparently when we were there there was another aftershock and so the stake president said we needed to go even further inland. So we got all our stuff and walked to the mountains with a bunch of people from the two wards. The worst part of all of it was the lack of communication. Nobody could make any phone calls so we couldn´t get ahold of anyone. A big miracle was that we were with our elders when it happened and the other sisters from our zone were also with their elders in an fhe or teaching english. That was great because I don´t know what wouldve happened with the lack of phone lines.
At last we reached the ¨point of safety¨which was basically a road. We were lucky that we had been able to go back to the apartment because it was really cold and we had no idea how long we would be there. After about an hour we were told that we could go to the chapel again but that we needed to wait 6 hours to know if a tsunami was going to happen. DUring this time I tried over and over and over and over again to contact people with my cell phone (everyone else had stopped trying so they could reserve battery) and I was finally able to get ahold of a few people and then my phone was the magic phone that got ahold of everyone in the zone and with the office, who were freaking out because they couldn{t get ahold of anyone in Arica. Poor President probably didn´t sleep even a minute that day.
When we got to Loa, it was about 1:30 am and they were able to get the news on their laptop so we watched that for about an hour because nobody could sleep and then we made our beds and tried our very best to sleep. It was a looong night but at 7am they lifted the tsunami alert and we were able to go back home. I got about 1.5 hours of sleep and coudnt sleep when we got to the pension.
THis is turning into a really long email and you probs dont care that much about the details so I´ll try and sum it up. We did service on Wednesday but really nothing happened so there wasn´t much to do. Chile is a really prepared country so everyone knew exactly what they needed to do when something like that happened. THat night there was another earthquake (7.6 i think) and we grabbed our stuff again and headed over to where the elders lived. From there we (us 8) sat outside for another hour and listened to the radio and they let us go sleep in our pensions. YAY!
Now we have 2 more sisters living wiht us for about 2 weeks because their apartments are below the safety zone. WE know that nothing is going to happen but PReisdent wants us to be able to sleep at night without worrying about every movement. It was interesting because we got our cambios and my new compaion is one of the girls who was moved to our apartment to live temporarily so today she just moved all of the rest of her stuff. Her name is Hermana Salinas and she is from Mexico. SHe is in her 3rd transfer.
Yeah no time left. WE had a water scare but everything is fine. I am excited to start my last cambio!! I LOVED general conferennce- I loved a lot of talks but the ones I can think of were President Uchtdorf, Elder Zwick and Elder Holland. I am so grateful for living prophets. I love you all!
THen all the sudden the lights shut off and you could see fireworks outside so we got up and moved towards the door. There was this big black lady from Colombia that had her hands in the air and was yelling ¨Everybody pray! Lord! How could you let this happen! Forgive us Lord!¨ which was really funny but made my companion freak out and start sobbing. We got ourside and saw the elder run around the corner (they had left like a minute before the earthquake started). I was trying to help my companion calm down but even after we were outside you could feel the earth shaking and could see the houses and the light poles shake. I can{t really remember what happened at this point or how we got seperated from everyone but suddenly we were walking with the elders back to the pension (after making sure everyone was okay). We made a plan to run back to the pension and then head to Loa, the stake center. We ran in the apartment, grabbed a bag and shoved clothes, our journals, a little bit of food and a few other things and met up with the elders and made our way to Loa. It was funny because I had JUST unpacked my emergency bag that I made when the first temblor happened the day before. Bummer.
When we were walking to Loa, it was pitch black and people were everywhere. I don{t know how there weren´t any accidents because every car was heading top speed to the mountains. We got to Loa and there we found out that it had been an 8.0 terremoto (apparently it was actually an 8.2 but at that time they said 8.0 and in Arica it was 7.9. Apparently when we were there there was another aftershock and so the stake president said we needed to go even further inland. So we got all our stuff and walked to the mountains with a bunch of people from the two wards. The worst part of all of it was the lack of communication. Nobody could make any phone calls so we couldn´t get ahold of anyone. A big miracle was that we were with our elders when it happened and the other sisters from our zone were also with their elders in an fhe or teaching english. That was great because I don´t know what wouldve happened with the lack of phone lines.
At last we reached the ¨point of safety¨which was basically a road. We were lucky that we had been able to go back to the apartment because it was really cold and we had no idea how long we would be there. After about an hour we were told that we could go to the chapel again but that we needed to wait 6 hours to know if a tsunami was going to happen. DUring this time I tried over and over and over and over again to contact people with my cell phone (everyone else had stopped trying so they could reserve battery) and I was finally able to get ahold of a few people and then my phone was the magic phone that got ahold of everyone in the zone and with the office, who were freaking out because they couldn{t get ahold of anyone in Arica. Poor President probably didn´t sleep even a minute that day.
When we got to Loa, it was about 1:30 am and they were able to get the news on their laptop so we watched that for about an hour because nobody could sleep and then we made our beds and tried our very best to sleep. It was a looong night but at 7am they lifted the tsunami alert and we were able to go back home. I got about 1.5 hours of sleep and coudnt sleep when we got to the pension.
THis is turning into a really long email and you probs dont care that much about the details so I´ll try and sum it up. We did service on Wednesday but really nothing happened so there wasn´t much to do. Chile is a really prepared country so everyone knew exactly what they needed to do when something like that happened. THat night there was another earthquake (7.6 i think) and we grabbed our stuff again and headed over to where the elders lived. From there we (us 8) sat outside for another hour and listened to the radio and they let us go sleep in our pensions. YAY!
Now we have 2 more sisters living wiht us for about 2 weeks because their apartments are below the safety zone. WE know that nothing is going to happen but PReisdent wants us to be able to sleep at night without worrying about every movement. It was interesting because we got our cambios and my new compaion is one of the girls who was moved to our apartment to live temporarily so today she just moved all of the rest of her stuff. Her name is Hermana Salinas and she is from Mexico. SHe is in her 3rd transfer.
Yeah no time left. WE had a water scare but everything is fine. I am excited to start my last cambio!! I LOVED general conferennce- I loved a lot of talks but the ones I can think of were President Uchtdorf, Elder Zwick and Elder Holland. I am so grateful for living prophets. I love you all!