14 March 2011

Family,

So I'm sure some of you are wondering what the tsunami was like on our end, but somehow Micronesia wasn't touched. I think it has something to do with the reefs that surround each of the islands. But anyway, Friday evening just after our training, we were heading home and the mission president texted us and told us about the tsunami warning and asked us to alert all the zones and have the missionaries get to higher ground. I was pretty surprised and probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, but since it came directly from President Dowdle, I thought it was pretty serious. So anyway, we took all the missionaries that were staying with us (about 14 total) and drove to the mission office to make the calls to the other islands. We were able to get in contact with all but one companionship, which happened to be the one we were most concerned about. People were camping out on hills or in church buildings, and in Guam the missionary apartments are all pretty high, so they were told to stay in their apartments. So then we waited. We were told it was supposed to reach Guam at about 11 p.m. our time, but the time came and went, without so much as getting my feet wet. This is the second tsunami warning that I can recall on my mission, and both had the same result. I did hear a little about the devastation in Japan, and I couldn't believe it. We saw the number deaths go from 5 to 10 to 32 and I guess now its around 10,000. It's just really sad, so we've been praying for not only the missionaries serving there, but the people in general.

Like I said, we had a training meeting this week for all the leaders in the mission. We housed most of them but we had to ask the district and zone leaders in Guam to house some too, just so then we would have enough room in each of the cars to take everyone to the meeting and everywhere else they needed to go. It was pretty crazy. Then after the 4 days of training we had a huge service project clearing brush around a high school in the north of Guam, and then followed all of that with Zone Leader Council. It was a lot of stuff to plan and put together. It's weird to be on the other end of it though. It's the same feeling every time. Training from a leadership position you just want the missionaries to get what your saying and put it deep into their hearts, but I never understood how important the things they were saying were until I was the one actually saying them. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I don't really have much else to say. Most of our week was spent shuttling missionaries around and sitting in meetings. This next week we have to re-draw borders for a few of the areas in Guam, but other than that I think we'll have some time to do some good finding. We should be going on a tour of the mission in a couple of weeks, so we'll be preparing for that as well. I will say that the time is flying faster than ever. Dealing with so many things seems to make the days pass in seconds.

I'll talk to you soon.

Love,
Elder Barlow