Philippines Flooding

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

            We had severe flooding in the Philippines recently.  There’s more flooding than some foolish people may realize.  There’s a flood of evil drowning our Father’s children throughout the world. 

            As a holy and dear Prophet of God wrote, “Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of its own self-destruction.  Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace.  Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family.” (–President Ezra Taft Benson, Preach My Gospel, page 2). 

            The floods and tides of evil inundating the lives of the children of the earth will be soon turned away by the Savior of the World.

             You’ll be interested in Sister Taylor’s report of the Philippines Flood, attached below. 

George & Debbie

 

Last week and last month the Philippines experienced a major earth quake and severe flooding.  Last year’s rains in the Philippines were not as bad as this.  The rain comes down, not in drops but in buckets.  In 2010, the lower level of the former MTC was flooded. 

“The overflowing Marikina River in Marikina, Metro Manila, is seen in this aerial photograph released by the Department of National Defense August 8, 2012. Emergency workers and troops rushed food, water and clothes to nearly 850,000 people displaced and marooned from deadly floods spawned by 11 straight days of southwest monsoon rains that soaked the Philippine capital and nearby provinces. About 60 percent of Manila, a sprawling metropolis of about 12 million people, remained inundated on Wednesday, Benito Ramos, head of the national disaster agency, told Reuters.”

“A group of Philippine farm workers huddle beneath a bridge to seek shelter from rains and rising floodwaters north of Manila on August 8, 2012. More than a million people in and around the Philippine capital battled deadly floods on August 8 as more monsoon rain fell, with neck-deep waters trapping both slum dwellers and the wealthy on rooftops.”

Here at our new MTC we are secure, safe, and sheltered from the storm.  For our last “batch” we wondered if we were going to get the departing missionaries out to their fields and the new missionaries into the MTC on August 9^th and 11^th.  But the watery weather withered and all went well. We even had a missionary show up the night before he was scheduled to arrive.

The Quezon City Mission in which area we reside, had 42 missionaries displaced and moved for a couple of days to other missionary apartments or to the churches. The humanitarian missionaries at the Area Office along with the youth from the local wards and stakes have worked hard preparing hygiene, new born, and food kits. They put together canned sardines, corned beef, rice, noodles and crackers. Over 10,000 kits were prepared.  Our MTC missionaries loaded the bags onto the trucks for distribution in between their training sessions.

One of our missionary’s home was washed away with everything in it just one week before she entered the MTC.  Her stake rallied the members to provide her with clothing, shoes, and scriptures.  We had a few other missionaries that arrived without scriptures because they were lost or damaged in the flood.

Oh, how grateful I am for the Lord, the gospel, the members, and all those who bless my life and the lives of so many others.

Debra Sue Taylor 09-12-12