Surviving the 8.8 Quake!

2-27-2010
  Hey everyone, just letting you know that I'm doing fine, no problems at all. Twas crazy and stuff but I'm good! If we get permission to call I'll call you in a bit. I'd love to know if you've heard from Ryan though. Love you all. I'm good! Dont worry at all. Talk to you Monday!

3-1-2010.
  Yeah, so this was a pretty boring week, so I don't have much to write about. Sorry it'll be a short letter.....Oh wait. I guess you guys heard about a little earthquake we had here in Chile. I guess I should talk about that haha. : )

  So yeah. GIGANTIC EARTHQUAKE. I'm gonna write a big description of everything in the email so don't worry. I'll start from the beginning.
  So we go to bed Friday night at 11:30 pm like normal. At 3:34 we were awaken by a shaking house. Oh yeah, so you know, we live on the third floor of an apartment building, just imagine it being high up haha. So I wake up, and feel the bed shaking. I'm on the top bunk and I asked Elder Frost if he was feeling it too. He said yeah so I figured it was an earthquake. It started off pretty calm, just a little shaking, so I jumped off the bed and got into the doorway. And as soon as I got there, the shaking got harder. And then it started shaking harder and harder and HARDER. I can't even tell you what it was like. It was insane. The noise was so loud, the walls were shaking ridiculously hard. My thoughts were the following: Without even thinking I said a prayer, then came the thoughts of panic. It seriously felt like the walls were falling down. I thought for sure the building was coming down, and there was nothing we could do on the third floor. It was too hard to move because everything was shaking. I remember thinking at one point, because it really felt like it, that the building was collapsing. I have never feared for my life, but in this moment I really did. It was pretty darn scary. And it didn't help that at one point a man outside started screaming. I thought, oh man, that guy is dying, we´re all dead - haha. Then the shaking got even more intense. The earthquake itself lasted for like a minute and a half or something, with a majority of it super hard shaking. But then it ended. Finally. We all 4 Elders threw on shirts, shoes, grabbed phones and keys and RAN outside. I was expecting to see pure destruction outside, like buildings on the floor and everything. But there wasn't any of that when we got outside. Just lots of hysterical Chileans. Funny thing, we looked outside before we went downstairs and all you could see was lots of lit cigarettes. That's the first thing the Chileans did, smoke. I thought it was pretty funny.
  Anyway, we get outside and sit out there for a bit, like until 6am when we feel its safe to go back inside. We get back in, inspect the damage, then attempt to go to sleep. But at like 7:00 or 7:30 there was an aftershock and we all jumped out of bed and RAN outside so fast. We then were outside for a while, playing uno, eating snacks, then went back inside. Then we really inspected what had happened to the building, pension and stuff. In the pension, there was just a big mess. Stuff was on the floor, but not too much was broken. Only a mirror, a mug and a picture of Elder Frosts' (which was of dragonball z haha). In the pension, theres some cracks in the walls, nothing too major. On the outisde of the buildings there's some damage, like cracks and stuff, but nothing like the buildings are gonna come down.
  We then got a call from our leaders and they told us to go out and work in our sectors in street clothes and offer service to people that need it. So that's what we did. Actually first we ate lunch. We had no power, water or gas, so we couldn't do anything. So we went to a little store and bought bread, ham and cheese and ate sandwiches. At the store was a television and we got to see exactly what happened everywhere, the damage and all that good stuff. Anyway, we went back, ate, and then left to the sector.
  Going to the sector we expected to see a lot more damage and stuff but surprisingly nothing happened in our sector. The only damage there was some walls that were around houses fell down and also that big wall with all the graffitt on it. Some of that wall fell down, so that's disappointing. But we went and visited all our investigators and the members houses to see if everything was all good. And it was so, that was good. All our investigators worried about us, haha. Every single one of them said, oh we worried a lot about you Elders all alone and stuff. It was funny, cuz they all said it, haha. But yeah, thats how we spent our day the day of the gigantic ridiculous earthquake.
  And Sunday, we were still out of water and power so we couldn't shower, but the other Elders invited us to their bishops house to shower. Then we had church, with 50 people, then went to lunch and had a normal day. Theres been like 50 billion aftershocks though. Like every 15 minutes and stuff. But yeah, here we are.
  And that was the earthquake. Not much else to share because everything else is not exciting in comparison. Our investigators are doing ok, no big developments or anything, and we´ll see what happens now that the earthquake hit. But yeah, I survived! It was scary but here I am. Not something I'd like to relive though. But thanks for all your prayers and stuff. I love you all and hope youre all doing good!
I'm gonna send a different email with some pictures and stuff.
Love,
Elder Aaron Mayberry