5 Days After Typhoon Mina

Today we had plans to spray for bugs, review and approve two new missionary apartments, deliver a wheelchair to a couple going to Manila next week and do a little shopping on the way home. We started out well. I got the apartment sprayed for bugs and got three geckos in the process. I felt like it was going to be a good day. The clouds in the sky got lighter, so I got the wheelchair loaded into the trunk of the car and we were off to meet the elders and review our first missionary apartment. The clouds darkened again and we knew what that meant... it started to rain like it does everyday. A half-an-hour down the road and we came to our first flooded road. We slowly followed traffic into the waters and hoped that we didn't hit a deep pot hole. We could see the homes that had been flooded and our hearts went out to them. It has been five days since typhoon Mina passed over us dropping about 14 inches of rain and then we get our normal few inches every day. 

 The water was rushing over the road.

 A little waterfall right outside our car window.

 Vehicles all follow each other through the flooded streets, trying not to splash pedestrians and passing trikes. 

 The kids think it's a lot of fun to have a swimming hole in their own front yard.

A loving goat owner put a rain coat on their family goat.

We traveled through miles of flooded road until we came to the fork in the road to go to Malasiki, where we were to meet the zone leaders to review the apartment. The water got too deep and I could feel the rear wheels lose contact with the road and float to the side a little. We decided not to risk getting the car flooded and called the zone leaders to reschedule the apartment check. We had to retrace our journey back through the slow traffic in the flooded streets.  

 

 We made it out of the rice field area and back to the big city of Dagupan only to find minor flooding of 6-10 inches of water on their streets. A deep breath and onward to Linguyan for another apartment check. Fortunately the roads were wet but very passable.

Here is Dad and the Elders in Bugallon. When I asked Elder Smith if they had trouble getting to their teaching appointments, he told us that they went to teach an investigator last night and had to walk through thigh deep water. The path to her home is three to four feet wide, but has a trench in the middle and a lake on either side.  They try to stay right on the path. Elder Smith slipped on the mud and fell off the path into the lake.  His companion was laughing so hard he fell in too. When they got to the investigators house she said that she felt it was one of the signs of the true Church that they would come to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ no matter the conditions.  

We met the zone leaders and walked to the new apartment. It was still under construction, but it will be finished in two or three weeks, just in time for the elders to move into it. 

 The picturesque view from their new apartment.

 

 A few friendly carabau graze in the rice field and don't mind the rain and wet.

 A few local cows munch a meal in their backyard.

Howdy neighbor!
 See ya 'round.

Y'all com' back now, ya hear.