anybody wants they could make me a cape and helmet or something cool
like that. i like blue and gray. well ill be honest i dont really know
where to begin. it was a crazy week, i dont know if it was news in the
states, but it was definitely news here to have a 8.3 earthquake with
an epicenter 40 min south of coquimbo followed by a tsunami that
destroyed a part of downtown in my sector. haha it was crazy!
but anyway ill try to remember as much as i can. wednesday at like 6
or 7 we were teaching a lesson to a new investigator name gonzalo
inside the office of his air conditioning business. haha and this guy
is huge and jacked. but it starts shaking a little bit and i have
experienced lots of little tremors so i was like oh yeah no big deal
and gonzalo goes [tranquilo chiquillos[ haha and so were just like
okay its gonna pass... BOOOOOM! i seriously thought the earth was
going to open up and eat me whole, it was super loud and suddenly the
whole building was swaying back and forth. haha so gonzalo loses it
and starts running to the door and we follow him like almost falling
over on the way. but yeah it lasted for like 3 min and nothing to bad
happened near us, but the street and cars looked like it was a
swimming pool it was moving so much. the real danger are the power
lines during an earthquake so we stayed in the entrance of the door,
and i dont know why but i thought it was kind of fun like i wasnt even
scared! i dont know it was weird..
so after it finished we decided to peace because gonzalo had to go
home to make sure his fam was okay. so we went to alexis{s house and
were with his family. the thing is is that our sector in coquimbo is
the entire coast. pretty much two giant bays and near the beach on
one of them is our house. so at like 9 o clock all of the sirens in
the city started going off signaling what everyone was fearing. a
tsunami. so we had to run down to our house before the cops threw us
out from the area and grab our most precious things and our emergency
kit. haha ill be honest i got a little bit scared it that moment. but
after we got it we went back to alexis{s house, hes our second
counselor in the ward, and did some visits to make sure other ward
members were okay. the problem is that the 18th of september is the
biggest holiday in chile, and the biggest party in chile is also in
coquimbo! so thousands and thousands of people were in pure panic
trying ot drive out of a town with all of the power out, zero
stoplights, and lots of debris and crap in the streets. it was pure
chaos for a few hours. but we stayed the night at alexis{s house.
in the morning we called president and told him our whole zone was
okay and everything and we went tp the church. only a few things had
broken in the church and a few families had spent the night there that
didnt have houses in the safe zones. we came to know that not the bay
where our house is, but the other that is where all of downtown is had
been destroyed by a tsunami. luckily they had evacuated it and it
appears that there have only been about 15 deaths, but man i felt like
i was in a movie for those 24 hours! the next day we went with some
other missionaries and some members to help start cleaning up the
mess. it was crazy.- you always hear stories about stuff like this,
but it was different seeing it.
ill send some pics of our efforts to help the people that lost
everything, but its sufficient to just say that within 5 blocks of the
shore in downtown, everything was obliterated. theres ships, freight
crates, buses turned over, and thousands of fish everywhere, including
some missing people. but yeah we have been spending a large part of
everyday going down to help clean out mud and garbage and we{ll
probably keep doing it this whole week.
there have been tremors every day since the earthquake but lets just
hope that nothign big comes becasue its possible that another comes
after that is even bigger!
for the 18th we got the day off and celebrated with lots of asados,
which is like a barbecue and some soccer. i couldnt believe it, it was
so much fun. but yeah its been a crazy week and i dont have much more
time to write.
we cut our own hair, and this week we have interviews with president
diaz in our houses. should be fun.
i know there is other stuff thats happened but im exhausted and ive
got ot go. know that i love all of you guys and im so grateful that
nothing bad happened. i know god looks out for his servants. im
serving with everythign ive got, and even though it is the hardest
hting ive ever done it is also the most gratifying. i love the lord, i
love this work, and i love chile.
-elder allred - survivorman
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