Sunday, November 10, 2013:

We slept in for some time on Sunday morning, trying to get as much rest as possible so that fatigue wouldn’t be a problem for us in the near and uncertain future. We woke up in time to make breakfast before the Sacrament Meeting that was to be held at 9:00am. We were able to prepare some slightly burnt scrambled pancakes.

Making final preparations for the next leg of our journey, I decided to do a little bit of exploring at the apartment. In the corner of the kitchen was a door that lead to a narrow yard between the side of the house and the property fence.

Outside the Zone Leaders’ Apartment

There was a lot of debris, especially by the door, but my explorations paid off when I found an old umbrella lying on the ground outside one of the windows of the apartment. The collapsible umbrella was old and slightly rusting, and it wouldn’t open by a press of the button, but by twisting the knob in the correct manner, it could still be extended. It had belonged to a missionary that had previously been assigned in San Roque, and it had apparently been discarded some time ago. The umbrella was small and in poor shape, but it turned out to be very useful for as long as I remained on the island. Since I had left my large and sturdy, but cumbersome umbrella in San Roque, this find ended up providing essential protection from the harsh sun, which would otherwise have caused greater dehydration and sunburn.

Unfortunately, Elder Oakes was starting to feel very sick, and we didn’t know why. He felt very nauseated, which kept him returning to the bathroom repeatedly. In a great hurry to get to the sacrament meeting on time, we decided that he should take some Imodium and that we should head over to the chapel.

We ended up getting to the chapel late, but were still able to partake of the sacrament. When we got there, they had begun to have what was essentially a testimony meeting. People from the congregation were free to take the stand and speak about how the gospel was helping them to endure this disaster. They spoke of the churches efforts to get people to have food storage for at least 72 hours. They also talked about how they know that the things that were lost in the storm are the things that are least important in an eternal perspective.

There was a decent turnout for such a meeting, and there were probably around 80 people there. Very few were able to salvage Sunday attire in time for the meeting. There was still no electricity, and the fans were useless, but it didn’t get too hot because of the rain during the meeting. The floor was clean, but wet in places where the ceiling was still dripping. Some of the people getting off of the stand after speaking almost slipped when stepping onto the tile in one of the places that was wet.

The greatest point that was spoken of was that the typhoon had destroyed almost everything. For many people, their homes and all of their possessions that they had to their name had been lost, but the typhoon couldn’t take away their faith, and it couldn’t take away the family relationships that they knew could be perpetuated beyond the grave. For many of the people at that meeting, the gospel was the only source of peace and hope that they could turn to in the face of such calamity.

After the meeting ended, I walked over to the piano in the chapel, which was remarkably still in working condition after the storm, and I played “Master, the Tempest is Raging,” which I believed was the most appropriate number for the circumstances at the time.

Before leaving the meeting, we talked with the Tolosa Zone Leaders, who were going to be traveling to Dulag to check on the missionary with the snake bite. They suggested that we go back to our area, indicating that we could probably be of great assistance to the members of the San Roque Branch as they began to rebuild.

We were faced with a tough decision at this point. Earlier in the day, we had already planned on going to Tacloban, but now we faced direction from one of our leaders to return to our area, contrary to all of our plans. We returned to the Zone Leaders’ apartment while they lingered at the church. We took this time to consider our options. We weren’t sure if the Zone Leaders understood the gravity of the situation as well as we did or if we were just entertaining an inaccurately pessimistic view. They were about to leave to go to Dulag, in the opposite direction from Tacloban, without any guarantee of the availability transportation and without any food or water except for what we had forced them to take from our own supply.

Our food supply was running lower, the stability of the area was rapidly decreasing as general hunger and thirst increased. In contemplation of the help that we would actually be able to extend if we were to return, it didn’t seem like we would be able to do much help if we in very much need of help ourselves.

By the time that we arrived at the apartment of the Zone Leaders, Elder Oakes and I had decided that we would continue on our journey to Tacloban rather than return to San Roque.  In the light of the instability and limited resources that were available, we came to the conclusion that our own safety should be our first priority. Because of reasons previously considered, we were still confident that going to the mission office in Tacloban City would be in the best interest of our safety.

Before we could leave, we still had a few items of business to attend to. Travel had been difficult the previous day because of the weight of our belongings. We planned to hitchhike to Tacloban if it were possible, but we didn’t want to ignore the possibility of needing to cover ground on foot, so we took this opportunity to discard some of our less-useful belongings. I left some clothing, vitamins, and some other heavy, but unnecessary, items.

When we finished re-packing, we still thought that the Zone Leaders might be returning to the apartment before they left on their journey south to Dulag, but precious daylight was wasting, and there was still no sign of them. We correctly suspected that they had left directly for Dulag from the church, and would not be stopping by their apartment.

This, however, lead to a predicament. We needed to leave so that we could make it as far as possible before sunset, and we couldn’t leave the apartment unlocked, but we also didn’t want to lock the Zone Leaders out of their apartment with their belongings inside if they might choose to show up after we left. We decided to lock the apartment, but to leave a puzzle for them to find the key outside. I found a set of unused scriptures, and after locking the door, put the key deep in the binding of the page with Doctrine and Covenants 82:10, so that the key could not be recovered simply by flipping through the pages with the book overturned. We duct-taped the book in a conspicuous place, open to the inside cover where we had written a slight variation of the verse where the key was hidden in large letters: “Hint: I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no door key.” This just goes to show that memorizing scripture-mastery verses can come in handy in unexpected ways.

Late in the morning, we set out for Tacloban. We weren’t sure how we were going to get there, or how far we would be able to get before sundown, but we knew that there were two more chapels in Tanauan and Palo where we could stop at before we arrived in Tacloban. Only later did I realize that I had left another small, but powerful flashlight in the apartment.