TYPHOOOOON!

Hello Family!!

Wow its been a crazy week! It started great! On Wednesday we had zone training and it was really good! We hadnt even heard about the storm until then. At that point we were only going to have to stay inside on Friday. My follow up training with President was supposed to be on Thursday. After zone training they canceled it though and told all of us to go out and buy canned food for Friday and the following days because they werent sure if we would have power or water. So we bought food on Wednesday and then went out in our area. We started by seeing Billy! He is so great! We taught him about repentance and he loved it. We had such a great lesson with him. He said he had a dream about Jesus Christ coming down to him. He doesnt remember anything else but he woke up crying. He said he knows this church is true now because that hasnt happened when he investigates other churches. He then said he has a lot of sins and he wants to be completely cleansed from all his sins. Then he committed himself to be baptized in December! That was weird. We didnt even need to ask him. He just committed himself! It was great! Then we got a text that said we needed to be inside at six that night and not go out at all on Thursday or Friday. So we spent the whole storm inside. It was pretty boring. We studied a lot... well, tried to study. We kept getting distracted from the storm. We have a balcony so when the storm wasnt very strong we would go out and sit on the balcony and watch it. It wasnt super bad where I am. We kept thinking it would get worse but it never did. And since we live in a concrete house and all the houses around us are concrete we couldnt see any damage. So we thought it wasnt that bad. But then we had a mission wide service project on Saturday. We started by going out to one of our areas called Bagol. Its away from the city so we figured they would have the most damage. Holy cow. It was beat up out there. One of our less active members whos husband is an investigator right now had their huge mango tree fall on their house. They no longer have a house. It was really sad. Then we walked over to other peoples houses. And along the way pretty much every tree had fallen over. We were walking on top of the trees because they all fell down. Then we got to another persons house. Their house isnt much better. The wind was so strong so their house is slanted now. And another members house completely tipped over. It was really beat up out there. We spend most of the day there. The ward was great though and they gave us relief bags to give to them. There was also a ton of flooding out there. There is a river by their house and its normally like 20 feet below their house. They showed us how high it got and it was up around my chest. It was completely flooded there. Its really bad out there right now. But other than that area most everything is okay. My area wasnt hit very hard. Ive heard of other areas that have been hit so much harder. Everyone in the ward was talking about Tacloban and how its flat there right now. I was worried about the missionaries there. Some of my friends from the MTC are there right now. Hopefully they are all okay. But we are all safe and nothing too bad happened. We are still cleaning up but we are good. We only lost power for a day. The power went out Thursday night and came back on Saturday night. And we had water the whole time so it was okay. We didnt really struggle at all because we had flashlights and candles and a gas stove in our house. And since we had water we were still able to make food. And we had bought a bunch of snacks so it was good. The sister training leaders live next door so on Friday night they came over and we talked to them for a while. It was a lot of fun! They are really funny. Its been crazy! Its weird that Ive been here for 2 months and Ive already been through an earthquake and a typhoon! At this rate I will experience a lot of crazy things on my mission! But its great! The people here are so amazing and they are all helping each other. We went to help the family who had their mango tree fall on their house and they were like, "no we have a lot of men here helping us. Go help the Gallo family because they only have one man. They need the help more than we do." It was so great! They are so awesome and they even came to church on Sunday! Its the first time they have come to church in years. It was awesome! But now its pretty much back to normal because we are back on our regular routine. It was cool though. This was the first time I realized how much I love the people here and care about their safety. During the storm I was so worried about everyone and their safety. Before this I havent realized how much I care for them. Im so glad that everyone is safe and is staying positive during this hard time in their lives. I love the people here and love getting to know them. Im excited to continue teaching them and helping them as best I can. Sorry its not a great story but hopefully that gives you enough detail to know kind of whats going on here! Anyway I love and miss you all so much and I love hearing from you! Thanks for emailing me! Cant wait to hear from you again next week!

Sister Remund