So I only have ten minutes. Not much happened this week. No time to read any of the wonderful emails really. We went to Costco today and that was way great. We ate hotdogs and bought peanut butter ... that was all we did for like three hours of travel to get there ... not great, but we got to see the ocean kinda so that was nice.
We are singing, “Nearer My God to Thee,” also I am now singing in the Matsudo Christmas concert, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” I never wish I had brought church music with me ... until now … the music here it’s not like what we are accustomed to in Utah.
This week we played basketball and stuff with some of the ward ... we also met with Brother S; he’s doing well. He’s going to be baptized soon. I have a picture that I would like to send, next week probably. I hope that all y’all are doing good!!!
We also made root beer floats, they were way good even though it was freezing outside.
This week I’m glad to hear that Clyde is a champion car!!!! Wahoo!! Yeah, that’s my boy. So literally I’m writing this at ten at night trying to let my comps have some time too … so sorry for the shortness of the eMail; but I hope that this week is good and that dad is, all good, helping mom with the cleaning for Thanksgiving.
Happy Birthday to Jayli!!!
Love to you all; it is always good to hear from you!!!
Love Griffiths Choro; pictures next week.
PS Dad, today at Costco I mixed orange juice and Mountain Dew … and thought of you ... it was quite delicious!
PSS Mom, we are singing tomorrow, Tuesday, and I don’t know when the Matsudo event is. I will let you know. Next week we hope to have more time to mail. Tonight we got back late form teaching a lesson. I want to send pictures next week too!!
I Love you mom! I’m glad that I can swim too!
We sent the following portions of an article from the Deseret News to Trenton ... thus the comment about swimming ... mom indicated that she was glad he knew how to swim.
By Jesse Hyde, Deseret News National Edition
Published: Saturday, Nov. 16 2013 5:40 p.m. MST
MANILA, Philippines — The water was rising fast. In the darkness of early morning, Amanda Smith moved away from the window to shield her face from the slashing rain. She had shut it just moments before to ward off the raging storm whipping through the palm trees outside.
But now the wind had ripped it open, and the wooden shutters were slamming violently against the wall again and again. Sister Smith, an LDS missionary from Elk Ridge, Utah, couldn’t see anything outside, but she could smell the sea, which seemed to be getting closer and closer. They had to get out of here.
She had heard about the storm three days before, from a driver of a pedicab. It was typhoon season, and tropical storms were common in the Philippines. Still, the last storm warning had produced nothing but blue skies. Some of the missionaries wondered if this time would be any different.
There were nine missionaries with her in the house, a two-story structure made of cement blocks. They were young women from Utah and Alaska and the Philippines, all about her own age, 19. They had done what they could to prepare, hastily assembling 72-hour kits, and had even bought candles and rope, just like their mission president had asked, even though no one in the house thought either would be necessary.
Now, as water roared down the streets toward them, Sister Smith realized no preparations were too small. The worst storm in generations had just hit landfall.
She had been excited to go to the Philippines. But in some ways, she seemed too delicate for this place, with her long, willowy build and fine porcelain skin. The Philippines wasn’t exactly clean, and some things had taken getting used to — rice for every meal, the choking smell of exhaust on the clogged streets, cold showers from a bucket. But she had also fallen in love with the place — the sweet smell of mangos, the effervescence of the people, the way the language of Waray-Waray had started to roll off the tongue.
One day she sat down on a stool to teach a lesson in a dirt-floor shack and out of nowhere three fuzzy chicks materialized and walked around her legs, the way birds landed on Cinderella’s shoulder, and she thought: What is this magical place?
She had been out five months, she was assigned to an area called San Jose, where some of Tacloban’s richest and poorest residents live, some in nice apartments, others in shacks of bamboo and cardboard.
San Jose sits right on the sea, and so a few days before the storm, just to be safe, the mission president’s assistants asked her and her companion to come farther inland, which is where she was now, with nine other sister missionaries, in a house quickly filling with a black, mucky water.
At first, the sisters had all gathered in one central room on the second floor, thinking it the safest place in the house. But the water was now rising to their knees. Metal bars covered every window, preventing an escape outside. With no other choice they would have to go to the first floor, where the water nearly reached the ceiling, and try to open the front door to get out.
They knew the current could pull them out into the ocean, but if they stayed where they were now, they would drown in what had essentially become a box of cement walls.
One by one the sisters slipped into the freezing water on the first floor. A few couldn’t swim; they held tight to their companions. Sister Smith was scared too, but she was determined not to let it show. She wanted to stay calm for the others.
The front door was locked with a metal latch on the bottom and the top. One of the sisters dived under the water and unlocked the bottom latch; another reached the top and did the same. But when they tried to open the door it wouldn’t budge. The water pressing from the outside and inside had sealed it shut.
What had been ebbing as a low level panic reached hysteria for some of the sisters. Sister Smith could feel the panic rising in her chest too. With a few of the other sisters she started to sing hymns, their voices muted by the stinky water rising to their chins. Sister Smith put on a brave face, not daring to say aloud what she was thinking: “I never thought this is where my life would end.”
The sister missionaries worked together. Sister Schaap punched a hole through an opening in a flimsy wall, and the group of 10 swam through the murky water that would soon carry their journals and clothes out to sea. Those who couldn’t swim clung tightly to their companions.
The sisters used the rope to reach a nearby roof. Sister Smith stood on the rain gutter, the other nine sister missionaries shivering beside her, the rain still coming down in sheets. Hours had passed since the beginning of the storm, and yet the sky above Tacloban was still gray, shrouded by fog.
One of the sisters suggested they pray. They huddled closely together, bowed their heads, and with the rain dripping down their chins, asked God to make the water stop. And then, in what Sister Smith could only describe as the greatest miracle of her life, the sea stopped rising.
When the Letters are short, and the time is limited ... we appreciate any news from Chiba ... thus, we seek out other blogs being published from the same area ... sometimes you find a pearl of great value, even get a picture of your son ... thanks to McAllister Shimai for sharing her photo's ... this picture was unceremoniously copied from McAllister Shimai's blog
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| Willden Shimai, McAllister Shimai, Dunn Shimai, Dunbar Choro, Griffiths Choro, Asato Choro |
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Speaking in Sacrament Meeting
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