March 1 update

It's always a joy to hear from Elder Kenison on Mondays, but never more than today! We were so thrilled to receive emails with descriptions of the weekend and answers to our questions.

We asked him to share as much as he could about the actual earthquake. He said he didn't have that much time to type, but had recorded a detailed video explanation which he'll get to us soon! But he said he thought he woke up within 10 seconds of the start (3:30 a.m.) and that it seemed to last 3 minutes. His initial summary of the earthquake was:

in short 3 nephi 8:11 :D

Pretty clever — that verse reads: "And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward."

But this was a little more detailed:

i woke up with the whole house shaking. always thinking that all would be ok if there was an earthquake. but i couldn't imagine the noise. haha it was crazy. i woke up and flipped around and started praying. haha "Padre Celestial Ayudame Ayudame Ayudame!!!" that is, "heavenly father help me help me help me" a little after the middle of the earthquake i jumped onto my companions bed (we have a bunk bed and i sleep on top. haha) after everything slowed down (literally everything) we went around to find what broke. just a watermelon. our neighbors (we live behind a house of two elderly people) helped us a lot. they had candles and lots of other things to help out.

We were so touched to hear that his first thought was to pray — and that he was praying in Spanish! This photo was the only one he sent of earthquake impact, showing the total of the damage that occurred in his apartment.

We asked about aftershocks:

they were nothing. there was a 4.0 (or 4. something) aftershoke yesterday at like 8. Elder Alonzo feels all of the aftershokes and stops and says (in spanish) "still going... still going.... still going...." i just sit there.. "what?" haha yesterdays i felt though. haha

Other comments and insights:

we haven't really seen many things. but we went to the supermarket today. haha wow. they cleaned up but you could tell that there were alot of things on the floor before. but really just at night there are like sections without electricity. haha

We asked about power and water supplies:

no power outages but they shut the power every once in a while. we heard that they were going to shut the water off at like... 4 yesterday so we collected water. (we have two five liter bottles of good drinking water and one bucket of... mas o menos water for showering)

So in general, we were grateful that Matt was in one of the safer, less-impacted areas of central Chile. He felt enough to appreciate the power of the earthquake, but was spared any harm or danger.

The transfers that were planned for this week have been postponed one week. Matt is still expecting to be moved, but he'll have another week to help clean up and say goodbye to the friends and members in Maipu.

We were also pleased to get a series of photos, with this comment:

sorry i'm sure you were expecting lots of earthquake pictures and not pictures of making empanadas. but really there wasn't any damage here. and i haven't really seen much damage. but yeah all is well thanks for everything :D

One of the families in the ward, Familia Gonzalez, had the missionaries over for lunch and let them use their computer for emails (since most of the computer places were closed). Elder Kenison and Elder Alonzo took turns helping cook while the other was sending email to the family. (We'd love to know why Matt appears to be covered with flour in that last shot.)

Here are two more — Elder Kenison enjoying a dinner Elder Alonzo cooked before the earthquake, and appreciating a big, full moon (which doesn't look that big in the photo but seemed "huge" to Matt - "we checked to make sure the moon was white and not red. haha ")