8.9 earthquake hits japan

**updated at bottom of the post

i woke up this morning around 6:30. after i fed isaac, i got on the computer and checked my email. i read an email from my mom -

Just a quick note letting you all know that we are all safe and sound in Hokkaido. There has been no news about all the missionaries in Sendai or really know about all the damage to the people there. I am so worried about all of them! Our phones have been out all afternoon and we were very worried about a tsunami hitting our coastal cities but it did not really get us. We are headed to bed but have your prayers with Sendai.

We will see what we wake up to. The biggest earthquake in 140 years for Japan.

Love all of you!

Mom

obviously i got the remote and turned on the news to see countless pictures and videos of devastation in a place that holds such a large place in my heart. i dont want to sound over dramatic. but japan is my home. i lived in tokyo for 14 years. and i have been sitting in my living room here in santa monica in tears all morning switching between cnn and our local fox news station to watch whats happening in japan, and also about tsunami warnings/our beach closing here in california (which as of now, seems like nothing much is happening with that). eli came up to me multiple times and said, "whats wrong mommy? are you sad? be happy mommy!"

i have been messaging with my sisters all morning too. here is my dad's status on facebook-

Hokkaido did not seem to be hit as hard as other areas with the earthquake. However, it was the strongest we have felt since we have been here. Trains are still running and it seems like business as usual in Sapporo. However, the phone systems are down and there is a concern for tsunami in our coastal areas. We have reached most of our missionaries and confirmed that they are okay.

here are pictures from around japan showing some earthquake and tsunami damage

this picture doesn't show too much devastation besides smoke from a fire, but this was taken on rainbow bridge, that we'd drive across to go to disneyland and the airport, which we did often. do you see that building with the ball on it (a bridge cord is covering some of it)? my siblings always wished that was our house and i was jealous that my sister jordan called that ball to be her room.

this next picture is on the island of hokkaido, where my parents are. its in a city called hakodate, where they have missionaries and where we visited when we went out to see them.

you can see from the below map where the main cities are. my parents are on the northern island of japan, in sapporo. the main island is called honshu, and you can see where tokyo is in bold, and north of that is sendai, where the destruction seems to be the worst, and where there have been no updates about the missionaries there. please keep them in your prayers.

my parents wake up around 3pm. i am anxious to talk to them and hear any updates. i'll update here if there is any other big news. i feel very reassured knowing that earthquakes happen often in japan (in school we would have earthquake drills) so they were as prepared as they could have possibly been.

pictures from here and here.

*the death toll is up to 3600+, and will unfortunately keep rising.

*miraculously all missionaries in sendai have been accounted for. i heard tonight that the church is planning on evacuating all missionaries serving in sendai and tokyo to other areas... which means maybe my parents will be getting more missionaries soon.

*the destruction to me is still unbelievable. cnn has finally started showing new clips from the tsunami and watching it made me cry, again (i swear i'm not usually a big crier).

*the nuclear power plants are such a mystery to me. the daiichi power plant, located in fukushima (a little south of sendai), has major problems (fires/explosions... overheating) going on will all six of their reactors, and the radiation levels are rising, to the point where all the workers have been evacuated. if no workers are there to try to help, what the heck is happening? will other people go in? its not like nothing can be done and we just sit and hope the various issues happening will suddenly resolve themselves. i hate not knowing what the outcome of this is going to be. if it can somehow get under control vs. if they can't/don't do. anything in time.

my dad writes a weekly email to us. here was how his started this past week talking about his experience with the earthquake:

Dear Family,

Obviously, this was a week to remember in the history of our mission. The past few days, I have been plagued by hives. I have never really had hives before and especially, nothing to this degree so I decided to go to the Dr on Friday afternoon. My skin was so sensitive that if I took my finger and drew a line on my body, it would turn red and start itching. There were two benefits from the affliction, I was able to come up with some interesting body art and I learned the word for itchy in Japanese - kayui. When I arrived at the Doctor's office, I was standing at the receptionist finishing up the paper work when my legs started getting wobbly and I felt like I was going to fall over. I then realized that the illness must be more serious, possibly even life-threatening, and that I better take a seat before I passed into a coma. After I sat down, the whole room start moving and I knew that death was imminent. I then realized that my body wasn't the problem, the actual room was moving. It was a relief to discover that I would live after all and I was only experiencing one of the worst earthquakes in the history of Japan. I was surprised by the reactions of the Japanese at the Dr's office. No one even seemed to be phased by the earthquake. I think they have felt so many of them that they do not panic and just patiently wait for it to end. Two of our sisters were in their 7th floor apartment when the earthquake hit. They had just kneeled down and one of them was praying. As the shaking became more violent, they both opened their eyes, the sister that was praying just nodded her head towards their desks, they both moved under their desks as they were taught in school and then she resumed praying with the next sentence as though nothing had happened, Our APs were out housing and knocked on the door right when the earth quake hit. One of the ladies came to the door to seek cover in the doorway and asked them what they were doing contacting people in the middle of an earthquake. At the time, we didn't realize the extensive damage that the earthquake caused in Sendai and other parts of Japan. When I got back to the office, I received a call from the Area Presidency asking me to contact each missionary and confirm their safety. The one problem we encountered was the cell phone network went down and since the missionaries only have cell phones, it was hard to contact everyone. By the end of the evening, we had contacted the majority of our missionaries. We have 5 sets of missionaries in the coastal cities on the Pacific Ocean and there was a significant threat of flooding from the tsunami. Our five cities were some of the closest to the epicenter of the earthquake and we told the missionaries to go to high ground. Fortunately, the flooding didn't materialize as expected and we only had a couple of the cities in Hokkaido that experienced significant damage and flooding. All of our missionaries are safe and Hokkaido was fortunate to miss the brunt of the earthquake. We attended a Stake Conference this weekend and one of the counselors in the Stake Presidency daughter is serving in the Sendai Mission. They received a call last night stating that all of the missionaries in the Sendai area had been accounted for except four - one of them being their daughter. He bore a very faith promoting experience as the family gathered in prayer and prayed for her safety. The mother thought that she might be called to the Spirit World to teach the gospel to the thousands of people who died in the quake. The next morning, they received a call that all of the missionaries were safe and accounted for. In fact, another RM called them and mentioned that they had seen their daughter at the evacuation location getting water and was contacting the other people in the line. It truly was a miracle that none of the missionaries were injured by the earthquake or tsunami.