The Branch Presidents outside the district building

Cyclone Part 4

Monday March 16th, 2015

This morning we had a devotional and less people were there.  Many people were staying in shelters they made near their houses.  After the devotional me and Elder Jensen and four other boys went down to the house where we filled up all our water bottles and water jugs for the school.  Then we carried they all the way up to the isangel school.  Then we helped everyone clean up around the school.  Some of the people got lazy and wanted to rest.  But some didn't work much because they were waiting for chainsaws and supplies to be sent. 

We all then decided to help mama Rabi clean her place, then in the afternoon, me and three of the missionaries tried to made a siphon so water could come out of the well into a water tank.  The hose had a few little holes so it didn't work.  Then we used buckets of water and soap and we washed some of our clothes.  We then played soccer and volleyball outside with the people before we went to the devotional.  We found out that the road to whitegrass to middlebush and back to lenakal had been cleared and it was cleared all the way to whitesands.

The power was still out and the network is still down.  We are in dire need and need to talk to the mission president.  We need his direction and he is probably worried sick.  After the devotional they brought us some rice to eat, but it really wasn't much at all.  Food was really running low.  We will probably have to start conserving food.  The sisters didn't want to eat the rice.  The elders didn't want to eat it either.  Only a few of us did.  Most of us went hungry that night.

Tuesday March 17th, 2015 This morning we wok up and did the usual devotional and then three of us went down to the house to fill up water bottles.  But unfortunately the water was off.  We were completely out of water.  We walked back up to the school and saw a mama working in her yard.  We called the zone together and we all did service for her and cleaned up her yard and around her house.

Elder Tauke and Elder Pearce gathered money together and went into town to buy some food for everyone in case we had to stay for a long time.  They came back with lots of tin meat and crackers to last for a while.  Then me and Elder Jensend hooked up our water filter to a tank of water to fill up our bottles but there wasn't enough pressure for the water to move through the filter and the water was dirty.  Luckily we found a different tank that had clean water. 

Then we heard that some the the police were using satellite phones that were brought by planes from armies from other countries.  They were really nice and let me call President Brewer.  He answered and was very worried, he asked us where we were and if the missionaries were all alright and I told him we were safe and no one was harmed during the storm.  Then the network cut out.  He only had a little time to give us some direction.  He also said that the AP's were coming tomorrow.

We all went back and helped William clean the tile floor in a house in isangel.  We used brooms to scrub the floors with soap and water and we cleaned that house as other helped mama Rabi and John dig holes to put posts into the ground.  After the service we decided to call President Brewer to find out what his plans were.  He didn't answer so we tried the AP's number and luckily they answered.  They said that tomorrow the church would be chartering a small plane to come and pick up the sisters. 

They will fly the sisters back to Port Vila and then come back to pick up the Elders.  We will need to be at the airport at 11am tomorrow.  They also said we could charter transports to go to all the areas to grab all the missionaries, their luggage, and things.  We also saw there was a good chance to see each area and how it is.  We talked with John and he helped arrange transports that could take us to each area. 

Going to the house to fill up water bottles