Flooding in the Driest Place on Earth!

View from above

Soccer Field, before and after

March 27, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Don’t know if you have been following the news or heard anything about this but if not, there was a major flood here in Chile.  It flooded Copiapò and a couple other cities.  The mission president gave us time to tell you that all is fine with me.  :)

It started raining on Tuesday and flooded all of downtown.  As of now, its all flooded right now--Lider (Walmart), the new mall, the streets, it’s all flooded!

Thank goodness I live on the hill.  I have water, light, and electricity.  We haven’t been able to leave for 3 days, except to do some service for a couple of the members but our sector of the city is super good.  But for the missionaries in the city of Chañaral--the whole city is GONE.  People are stranded on their second floors.  But president told us that all the missionaries are fine.

We’ve had to stay in because the people have been kind of freaking out.  There is a line 300 people trying to get gas.  They closed the road to go to different cities.  They brought in the army and the president to help with the clean up. Lots of helicopters.  There is food, but the prices have gone up.  Eating a lot of peanut butter! haha

Talk to you more on Monday (if the cyber cafe is open). It’s been an interesting week.  I’ve been very blessed during this whole thing.

Everything is awesome, and super wet,

Austin :P


March 23, 2015

Hola familia y amigos,

Well, it´s official--6 months today.  Not that big of a deal, just wait until my one year mark ;)

The less active members here are really receptive. (YEAH!!!!)  Right now we are helping a family come back to church.  He was a missionary who had to come home for health issues and had a hard time about it.  I was sitting next to him at church when he started crying.  He told me how happy he is for choosing to come back again, to have peace in his heart. Sure, it’s more work and can be stressful, but eternal salvation is worth it. They are going to the temple to get sealed hopefully by the end of the year!

Yesterday we did an awesome ward activity called El Rescate, or the Rescue, where the whole stake and all the missionaries come to a ward and flood the area with visits. Our ward happened to be picked first.  I got paired up with two teenagers who are leaving on their missions soon.  They thought it was weird that I say hello to everyone, and most people I say hi to give me strange looks as well lol

 But I stopped caring about making a fool of myself a long time ago. For those of you who know me personally, you´ll understand (cough, cough...marching band, The Sound of Music, graduation speech, Christmas caroling in Vallenar…) That’s what the mission is--one awkward, fantastic experience. It’s hilarious when you try to talk to someone in a taxicab and they stare at you like you have two heads. :P

So, as my daily quote book said yesterday, "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes."

And I plan on doing just that.

Have a fantastic week! We are expecting a little rain in the next few days.

PS: the old Spock guy died from Star Trek!!???  That might be old news but I just found out.

Everything is awesome,

Elder Phillips