12 April 2017 - It's a cyclone!!!

Bonjour family!!

NOTE: The keyboqrd zonùt chqnge to English so yùqll qre gonnq hqve to deql zith so,e spelling ,istqkes todqy::::

DONC, le cyclone.

Je suis saine et sauve après the cyclone! Ne vous inquiétez pas!! [I am safe and sound after the cyclone! Don't worry!!]

They told us about it on Sunday morning and let us go to the store and fill up gas and stuff if we needed it. (President Granger authorized it. That's a blague [joke] in the mission haha.) Anyway, Soeur Brown and I didn't need anything because we're always prepared, so we were calm. General conference was AWESOME and I loved alllll the talks. So we profité-d de [benefitted from] being with other people for the weekend because we knew that once we got home, we'd be trapped in the apartment for 2 days. It was actually really cool because the night before the storm, there was a SUPER beautiful sunset. My pictures (yes, I took pictures) don't do it justice. It was like the beautiful calm before the storm.

Monday it rained alllll day and got progressively more stormy and windy as the day went on. By 6pm, it was full-on cyclone and our power went out. Our apartment is really secure, and we weren't really scared. We just had to amuse ourselves in the dark, hahah. We may or may not have stuck our flashlights in our buns and had a party. [I think she means hair buns.] Hehe! Yeah, we have lots of dumb videos of us amusing ourselves during the cyclone.

It was kinda hard to sleep that night because it was the worst part of it. We could hear the crazy wind blowing the trees around and were just worried that a tree would end up on our balcony. But when we woke up that morning, the sky was sunny and bright and there was even a DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY! Yeaahhh! It was really pretty. There were just leaves that blew up onto our walkway and balcony, but around our building there were whole trees that blew down. Most of the damage I've seen is just broken trees, but I guess the Magenta chapel was damaged. But that's literally right across from the ocean so kinda expected. Everyone here is so casual about it though. Outside just until it hit and then just went to cleaning right up the morning after. Like, no big deal, haha. Yeah, we have power back and the only problem now is that we can't drink the tap water just in case. (We boil it.) But now that we can leave the house we're going to look for people to help and serve! Oh yeah, all the members were super nice and kept calling us to see if we were okay. Love la paroisse [the ward].

In other exciting news, for my last transfer, I'll be staying in Paita/Dumbea with Soeur Brown! Woo hoo! :)

So yeah, that's my week! Transfers, general conference, and le cyclone!!! Haha

Thanks for thinking about me and all of us here on the Caillou :) Your prayers and support really mean a lot to all of us, but especially to me hehe :)

Je vous aime! Stop worrying! Hope you have a great week!!

Soeur Matheson

Les soeurs at conference generale (photo credit: Rachel Guidi)

Missionaries watching General Conference (photo credit: Rachel Guidi)

Damage to ceiling and roof of Magenta Chapel

Roof of Magenta Chapel