So at around 3:30 Friday on the 27th of February 2010 (¨a day which will live in infamy¨ haha) I woke up to the beginnings of the rumblings of an earthquake. At first I thought to myself, ¨Wow! this is quite an earthquake, but I´m from California so I´m used to it, I can ride it out¨ But then it wouldn't stop, and not only did it not stop but it seemed like every second it increased in strength. I then started thinking to myself ¨Holy Crap! This is an EARTHQUAKE!¨ So I started to think that maybe I should leave my bed (which is the bottom bunk) because it felt like it was either going to fall over or that Elder Sanchez was going to fall on me from the top bunk. But that thought quickly left my mind as things in our room started crashing to the ground. Then I started seeing chilean news reports of Haiti go through my mind and I also started picturing our apartment building (we are on the fourth floor) falling over. But I had already made my mind to stay in my bed so, left with nothing else and starting to actually fear for my life, I did the only thing I could do as the shaking continued… I began to pray. I prayed that we, his servants, might be protected, I prayed for my family just in case anything happened to me, but most of all I prayed for the shaking to stop and during the prayer, even before the shaking stopped, I felt comforted that I would overcome this even if the building did fall.
Then finally, the shaking didn't stop but, I felt it slow down and felt and heard the rumbling get more distant, almost like a train passing. At this point when the climax had passed and the shaking started to decrease, Elder Stevens yelled from the neighboring room to see if we were ok. At that point I ended my prayer, responded and immediately grabbed my sandals and flashlight (which was miraculously on my nightstand. Everything else was everywhere else.) and we headed out right away, still feeling that the building might fall at any minute. After we got out and had made a few steps, we realized that nobody had keys to lock up so I ran back in and got the keys as quick as I could. I felt like a firefighter going back into a burning building to save the stranded baby haha.
Anyways, after finally making it out of the stair well of the apartment building and onto solid ground (haha well not so solid but you know what I mean) we were greeted with darkness and the sounds of whistling, yelling, screaming, crying, and vomiting. People just freaking out and people trying to find their loved ones. But everyone was streaming into the streets from the apartments. The very first thing we thought of when we got out was that a tsunami could be next and we guessed we had at least twenty minutes before one hit so we immediately and quickly set out for the chapel (which is one of the highest points in our sector and in all of Talcahuano). While walking, we immediately called and miraculously got a hold of the missionaries from Talcahuano Centro and we told them to get themselves to the capilla of Centinela as soon as possible. Also on the way, we stopped by the family Fonseca´s house (our best friends in the ward) to see if they were ok. When we got there they were scared but fine and they immediately agreed to come with us to the capilla because they as well were scared of a tsunami.
In route to the capilla it was complete chaos in the streets. Not too many people in our sector have cars but it seemed like everyone who did was out in the street driving crazily to who knows where and there were people just streaming all around us with the same chorus of yelling, crying, and the occasional vomiting. All the lights in the streets were out but we had a full moon and there were a lot of car lights so we didn't have trouble finding our way. The fact that we had a full moon was a huge miracle because if there had been no moon it would have been a completely different situation. Also because of the full moon we were able to see some of the terrible destruction that happened in our sector but we didn't take the time to marvel at it. We were just going as fast as we could to the capilla. When we finally got there, we waited outside the gate surrounded by hordes of people and waited for the Centro Elders to show up. Luckily they found their way through all the people to where we were, like five minutes after we got there and we just hung out there outside the gate, freezing in our pajamas and listening to this radio that some guy had, trying to glean any information we could about what was happening.
After about 45 minutes or more we decided to make our way to another higher, less crowded, point of the sector to wait out the tsunami or to wait for the news that there would be no tsunami. When we got to the hill, we all just sat down on the ground and waited and talked while the whole time the ground was still rumbling and groaning every five minutes or so. After about an hour or so of waiting, the firefighters came by and said that we were all safe up here in the hills from the tsunami and we were all freezing cold so we decided to go wait out the last hours of darkness in the house of the family Fonseca (which was completely undamaged in the earthquake). On the way to their house, we heard a huge distant rumbling rushing sound from far away. A few of the missionaries were talking about how it looked and sounded like a plane was flying low but I half jokingly, half serious said, ¨No, guys thats the tsunami¨. We just kept our course to the Fonseca house but a few hours later we found out that I was actually right and that it was the sound of the tsunami down in the Centro of Talcahuano. Anyways, we waited out the rest of the night huddled in the family room of the family Fonseca with the door open because mildly strong aftershocks were still coming like every five minutes and we had no idea when and if the aftershocks would turn into another powerful devastating earthquake.
Finally at like 7:30 am, when it was light enough to see, we made our way back to the apartments. First we checked on some neighbors who are very good friends of ours to see if they were ok and then we made it back up to our apartment. When we walked in, the place was just a complete disaster. All the food and dishes and church and missionary materials were scattered all over the floor. The fridge was on the other side of the kitchen with its contents spilled onto the floor and the sofa and the sofa chairs were on the other side of the living room. Then upstairs in our rooms, it was a complete disaster as well, with all of our clothes and study materials and whatever else just spilled all over the floor. We did some basic clearing for like five minutes, then we all filmed the apartment and then we changed and headed out to see what we could do to help. Plus, we were worried about staying up in our apartment for too long.
When we left we went around checking up on members, investigators, and just going around seeing what we could do to help and seeing what really happened to our sector in the daylight. We weren't able to get ahold of any investigators but we did talk to a few members who were fine. At this point we again made the journey to the chapel and were just marveling at the destruction and taking pictures along the way. Although, I didn't have the heart to take some pictures because as we passed a lot of houses that were destroyed, the family was standing outside crying and holding each other, or looking at the house and crying or just sitting on the curb next to their destroyed house with a tired, sad, battered look of defeat on their faces. Like one time I lifted my camera to take a picture and the owner of the house, who was standing outside looking helpless, just gave me and my camera the saddest most pitiful look, so I just couldn't take the picture. It broke my heart to see people like that and it also left me feeling helpless because there were just too many of them and too much to do before we could start being of any real help to people.
So anyways, we finally made it to the capilla and most of the walls outside it fell down but the chapel itself on the outside was all right. Inside was a different story. In almost all the rooms, including the salon sacramental (don’t remember what its called in English) and the cultural hall all the ceiling squares and metal framing that held them together just came crumbling down. In every room it looked like there were just big metal spider webs hanging from the ceiling. So we spent a couple of hours cleaning up the rubble and looking for the emergency water supply that everyone said the church had. After that we found out that all the members were setting up tents on a high hill to sleep in because it said on the radio that another big earthquake and a tsunami were going to come at 8 o’clock at night. So we hurried back to the apartment, packed
up small bags with some food, extra clothes, some pictures of the fam, some of my favorite letters I´ve gotten and then we headed for the hills. It was really weird packing up a small bag and thinking that I might never see my other stuff again. But anyways we set up camp and while we were setting up, the missionaries from San Vicente (which is a port right on the ocean) showed up and so we had 8 missionaries sleeping just on the ground in a tent. It was pretty hard to get to sleep because we were waiting for another earthquake/tsunami to come any second but afterwhat seemed like forever I finally got to sleep.
At like six in the morning we were all woken up to the sound of shouting and gunfire down below in the center and that went on sporadically for about an hour or so. We guessed that it was the military shooting thieves down below and later on we found out that we were right. Anyways, that started off day two and in all honesty, day two didn't go so well. We didn't really know what we should do and we didn't fully understand the magnitude of the situation that we were in or what was going on. We started off by going to the house of the familia Fonseca and since we were all dead tired from two nights of little to no sleep we all just kind of crashed in the living room for an hour. Afterwards we ate breakfast and found some coke to drink in the Fonseca's house and that was very needed because we hadn't eaten or drunken really anything since before the earthquake. After that, our time was mostly spent trying to find somewhere to get water and food. We had a little bit of food but we knew it wasn't going to last and even though we had our water filter bottles we had absolutely no water. And meanwhile, all the day, hordes of refugees were streaming into the hills from down below. People soaked and covered in grey mud trudging slowly up the main streets that lead up into the hills. People with backpacks and sleeping bags dragging a few mud covered belongings behind them on wooden broken pieces of houses and boats and some string. And it seemed like the groups of people coming in never ended. It was like all of Talcahuano turned into vagabonds, gypsies and refugees over night. Even the ones from the hills, because no one were living in their houses; the hills just turned into tent towns. Everybody was still waiting on edge for another tsunami and/or earthquake to come so nobody wanted to be in or near their houses.
Also, not only were there people coming up into the hills, but there were people going down as well, and in a hurry. Trucks and cars, jammed full of people, driving down from the hills and people hitchhiking to get rides there. At first we didn't understand why until the afternoon when they started coming back up. The same trucks returned loaded with food, water, alcohol, and even some with computers and t.v.s. Everyone was raiding the food from the supermarkets and word was that the military was allowing it. So we decided to go down there to see what we could find (without stealing of course). On the walk down, it was really crazy. Mud covered people were still trudging up loaded down with food and goods carrying it in any way possible from shopping carts to rubble that was made into a carrying device. And the whole time it seemed like we were going against the flow. It really felt against my nature or instinct to keep going down and down the hills into the part of the city that was the most dangerous and most destroyed but hey, we needed the food. And as we continued down,the destruction just got worse until finally we made it to the bottom.
I will never forget the things I saw, the feelings I felt, and even the smells I smelled in that little trip into the Centro, ground zero. Just down there, there was a feeling of anxiety and panic in the air that was almost palpable and the heavy and thick coastal fog that came in that day really just made the atmosphere that much more foreboding. As we got to some of the main streets, I was just floored and awestruck at the magnitude of the destruction down there and of the animalistic inhuman state that the people were in. The people were especially bad as we passed by the main supermarket, Santa Isable. People were just swarming in and out carrying anything and everything that they could possibly carry. People were even on the roof tops, tossing things down to their friends below. One even tried to steal my comps camera (he was filming all of this). And everyone was covered with mud because the supermarket, Santa Isabel, was below sea level and kind of below the ground so it was just filled with water. Also, it was completely dark because there was no eletricity, so I don't know how people survived trying to take things out in there.
As we moved down from the market into the plaza, the destruction just started getting worse and I was just completely left speechless. 5 story buildings had just crumbled to the ground or were leaning like broken skeletons at unnatural angles. And mud, fish and boats were left on the streets from when the ocean, which was up to your waist in the plaza, left the city. Some of the streets were even guarded by military and were not open for people to go into because the destruction was just too complete, with rubble chest high and parts of buildings on crushed cars. But the scariest part of the whole experience happened when we were a block away from the ocean and checking out some busted and stranded cargo crates from boats. Cars and people just started running like mad and everyone said that the ocean was coming again, that a tsunami was coming fast. At that point adrenaline just took over and we didn't stop running until we had made it a few miles away from the ocean. Once again, in the tops of the hills, we just collapsed on the ground. Later we found out that there was no tsunami and that a big organized group faked it so they could be left alone to take food and supplies for themselves but it was a moment I will never forget. So that was day two and once again, we had to sleep in the tents.
On day three, we once again, woke up to gunfire but this time everyone was freaking out outside. We hurriedly left the tent and everyone was running in every direction gathering pieces, of metal pipe, sticks, or whatever and gathering into groups. When we asked what was going on they said that a huge band of thieves was coming up into the hills to rob and burn the houses and that they were almost to our community. So we picked up some homemade weapons of our own and gathered at the house of the member whose tent we were using to help him defend his house. He was outside with a gun so that made us feel a little better that they wouldn't mess with his house but still it was pretty nerve wracking just waiting. After a while we heard that the people from a hill away fought them off but when this news got out people just got busy preparing for when they came again. Doing things like tying knives to sticks and barricading the streets with rubble. We even had to put white armbands with the name of our community on to distinguish us from the thieves so we could walk around
without somebody attacking us. It was pretty crazy and once again there was a feeling of chaos in the air but also determination because all of the neighbors united to defend their houses. Also at about this time a member, who has a diesel truck, offered his house for us to use as a “home base” and so a couple of hours after the first raid of the thieves we moved all of our stuff from the tent down to the house when once again everybody started freaking out because the band of thieves was coming back. So once again we grabbed our homemade weapons and headed to the house but this time the military was there up in the hills so when the thieves came the military just gunned them down and they went running.
After that point, we had to take turns doing two hour shifts of guard duty every night in the members house for the rest of the week. I remember the night of day 3, my shift was from 3 am to 5 am and it was very creepy just sitting in the front room or on the front porch in the dark just waiting. Luckily we had the members gun to use on guard duty (don't worry, he taught us how to use it) which was a big comfort but at the time it was strange to think that I might actually have to use it. But thank goodness I never had to use it because the raiders never came back up into the hills.
After day 3, the days that we stayed in the members house kind of just all blur together. Everyday Elder Stevens, Elder Kraut, and the member made trips into the now wild jungles of Talcahuano and Concepcion to try to find gas, food, water, cooking oil, and any other supplies we needed to survive. They had some crazy experiences down there but they luckily never came back empty handed. They always had plenty of gas and accumulated enough canned fish to last us months. Not the best tasting stuff but at that time any food was welcome. For us missionaries who didn't go into Talcahuano and Concepcion in the truck, our days were spent waiting hours in line at the fire station with buckets to get water, helping members in need, looking for our bishop who went AWOL with the keys to the water tank at the church and just doing the essential things that needed to be done to survive day to day. On day five, I think it was, we finally were able to track down the bishop and take the key to the tank so from that point on we were able to take water out for us and the members at the church. Our church building is on a hill in plain view of everyone so it was a little complicated to smuggle water out of the church and get it to members without anybody seeing because the last thing we wanted was an angry thirsty mob at the gates of the church.
Fortunately we were sneaky enough and we never got a mob on our hands.
By day six the situation with us 8 missionaries in the house was starting to get pretty complicated due to the rationing of water, food, and other reasons that I am not going to go into in this email. So we decided that we were going to try to hitchhike with our stuff into San Pedro where we knew that the President's house was. Luckily that same day, we were finally able to get a hold of President Swenson, the first time we were able to contact someone outside our group since the earthquake, and he told us that he was going to try to come see us even though he couldn't make any promises because it was very complicated and took about two hours or more to travel through Concepcion and Talcahuano to get to where we were.
But while we were up taking water out for the members at the church a few hours later we saw the president's red truck pull up to the gates of the church. I am telling you that was one of the most beautiful sights that I've ever seen in my entire life. Hermana Swenson even started crying when she saw us and gave us all a huge hug. After that we told the President about our situation and he said that he was going to take us to the church in San Pedro to stay with like 30 other missionaries there. He then took us to the members house and gave us five minutes to get a backpack with some stuff in it to take with us to San Pedro. We had only five minutes due to the 12pm to 6pm in the afternoon military curfew that was set from Concepcion to Talcahuano. With us 8 missionaries and backpacks in the jeep/truck thing it was the most uncomfortable two hour car ride in my entire life but we didn't even care because we were finally leaving! The lost battalion of Talcahuano was finally saved. It felt like we were on the last helicopter
out of Vietnam.
So even though a lot of stuff has happened since then, that was where survival mode ended. When we got to San Pedro, the chapel had turned into a refugee camp housing like 5 or so refugee families and forty missionaries. The 6 or so adrenaline pumped fight or flight days that we endured were now replaced with safety and lots of down time. With the curfew still enforced, I was bored out of my mind there and a had to sleep on a church pew but at last we had food, water, electricity and were safe. We still did guard duty but we were safe. We were only there at the church in San Pedro for three days. After the area presidency of Chile spoke to us on Sunday, President Swenson gave us the ok to go back to Talcahuano. When we got back, there was electricity back and we could go into Concepcion where a few supermarkets had opened back up to buy food so we were set. It was just a pain without water for another week but the water came back yesterday!!! WAHOOOO!!!! 15 days after the earthquake the water finally came back and so I took my first hot shower in two weeks last night :)
Anyways, last week back in Centinela was good and we had a lot of great experiences serving. We did things like take all the mud and mud covered things out of members houses down below where the tsunami hit. We helped old people carry water up hills from water springs down in the little valleys between the hills. We comforted members whose elderly parents couldn't escape the Tsunami. We did service, talked about the tender mercies of God, and helped out wherever we could. We also got a better look at how much damage was really done. One fishing village called Caleta Tumbes, which is part
of the sector Talcahuano Centro, and is like a twenty minute drive up the peninsula, was completely wiped out. There are entire streets where all the houses where carried away except like one or two which were damaged beyond repair. Streets where all that was left were the foundations of the houses and the toilet standing. So there is a lot of work to do in Talcahuano.
I had been looking forward to continuing our work in Talcahuano but unfortunately the President changed cambios and now I am being transfered. I'm going to a little tiny pueblo like an hour and a half away from Concepcion, called Monte Aguila. The one thing that's good is that I'm going back to the zone Los Angeles Norte; it's in the same zone as Galvarino, but I am really bummed that i am leaving Talcahuano after so short a time. My comp is leaving too so Centinela is going back to only having two missionaries. I really wanted to continue to serve the people there in Talcahuano with so much work to help them get back on their feet. The Lord has different plans for me. It looks like I'll be going back to normal missionary work tomorrow because apparently Monte Aguila wasn't too affected by the earthquake.
Well, I could really go on for like ten more pages about the experiences I've had and how my life has changed but unfortunately I have to go. But I want you all to know that the Lord really does protect His servants. I have seen more miracles than I can count these past two weeks and I've seen the people here really humble themselves. The Lord is preparing the people of Chile for His temple, and I am very proud to be a part of it. This experience has only strengthened my faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and my resolve to help bring my brethren here in Chile into his fold. I love you all so much and thank you everyone for your love and support and most of all for your prayers, for your prayers were answered :) HARRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!
Con mucho amor, Elder Harper :)
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