Tacloban Arrivals

The destruction that was left in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan ended up temporarily closing the Tacloban Mission. After all missionaries were found, the job of transporting them to Manila and reassigning them to other missions throughout the Philippines began. I have no doubt that this process involved mighty prayer and guidance from the Spirit. I listen to my husband explain how the Lord's hand will move his hand every six weeks on the transfer board, and I believe this is how the process worked in this "larger than life" transfer. 

This is a picture of the Tacloban missionaries right before they were separated and taken to other missions.

 

In Cavite, we consider ourselves to be one of the lucky eleven missions to receive a few of these missionaries. At first we were told we would be receiving 27. We scrambled and had a late night meeting with our office staff. First thing on the agenda was - how many available apartment spots do we have? Our finance elder left the room and returned with the answer - 28. That was our first of many tender mercies we would receive during this emergency transfer.  A day later we learned that the number coming to our mission would be reduced to 16. This included a senior couple. We had just lost a senior couple who had to return home early, and we had their apartment and truck available. We were elated! The arrival date of our Taclo - Cavite missionaries was Saturday Nov. 16th. There was so much excitement within our mission. One apartment of sisters sent us a text and said that their hearts were already full of love for the sisters and they wanted us to assign some to their apartment. The sweet part of this request is that their apartment was already full with four sisters. But they didn't care, they would have slept on the floor.

On Saturday, November 16th, our little group of survivors arrived. We really ended up with 12 instead of 16 - one elder will arrive next week. He needed some more time to  recover and rest because he had walked so far to get to an airport. An elder who cut his hand while crawling out of a window will go home to have surgery. Another elder who is still at the Provo MTC, will arrive on Wednesday. This would have been his regular transfer day to Tacloban, but his detour is Cavite. A sister who has had trouble sleeping, is returning home to recover there. I am amazed at the goodness of God and the miracles that have come to pass in behalf of the Tacloban Mission. God really does watch out for and protect the missionaries!

Here are the pictures of our newest Cavite missionaries. They are now members of our family for a season.

 Elder and Sister Maxfield

 Elder Jansrikesorn

 Elder Manley

 Elder Johnson

 Elder Lazan

 Elder Kesler

Elder Untalan

 Sister Teirra

 Sister Sorronda

 Elder Banawan

Sister Zaballa

Elder Burton - he just joined us. (11/19)He has been recovering at the Manila MTC. Its not often that President gets to look at someone straight in the eyes. Elder Burton's companion is just as tall as he is - we call them the twin towers.

 

Extra Pictures of the Day