Though given the option to return home after surviving four days without food, water or clothing in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, a Tooele woman serving an LDS mission to the Philippines has chosen to stay.
Sara Webber, a 19-year-old Tooele resident who began her mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just five weeks prior to the typhoon, will probably be reassigned to serve in Manila, the Philippine’s capital city, said her mother, Gidget Webber.
Sara wants to go back to her mission area, Gidget said, but with food supplies so short that armed skirmishes have begun to break out, it’s too dangerous for her to return.
Sara was serving in Carigara, 45 minutes out of Tacloban City, when the Nov. 8 typhoon hit. Tacloban City is considered one of the hardest hit areas.
The single road in and out of Carigara washed out during the storm, cutting Sara and about 24 other missionaries off from the rest of the world until they were located on Monday.
Although mission leadership had prepared the missionaries for the storm, Gidget said Sara told her they had quickly run out of supplies. The missionaries went without food or water for several days.
Gidget first realized her daughter might be in trouble last Thursday when she saw the typhoon on the news about to make landfall. It wasn’t until Friday morning she was informed that mission leaders had lost contact with Sara and were unable to locate her. By Saturday, with Sara still missing, Gidget said she became intensely worried.
The next day, Gidget attended a special devotional at the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City. She said while there she felt a spiritual impression that Sara would be safe.
It wasn’t until last Monday around 4 p.m. the family first heard that Sara had been located and was to be evacuated from Carigara. Sara was one of the last 24 missionaries located after the storm.
Sara told her mother Tuesday that she and about 20 other missionaries in Carigara rode out of town together on a single jeep, arriving in Tacloban sometime around 2 a.m. She and the other missionaries flew out to Manila in a large U.S. Air Force plane, crowding together on the floor with a sea of refugees.
Once safe in Manila, the missionaries were fed a hot meal and offered a shower and a change of new clothes.
The church gave the affected missionaries the option to go home after the ordeal, but Sara told her mother she wanted to remain in the country and, if possible, return to Carigara to help those who remain there.
“She feels that she was meant to be there for the typhoon,” Gidget said. “When she got that mission call, mama was not very excited—but she was so firm in knowing that was where she was supposed to go.”
Another missionary from the Tooele area, Charlotte Rugg, was also serving in an area hit by the typhoon. However, she was further south than Sara, and the storm there was not nearly as severe. She only saw a brief power outage as a result of the typhoon, said her mother, Ann Rugg. She will remain in the area.
Back in Tooele, Gidget said she has now initiated what she calls “operation suitcase”—a personal effort to get new clothing to the roughly 70 women pulled from missions in Tacloban and the surrounding areas. Those missionaries are now resting safely at a Missionary Training Center in Manila, but in many cases have lost almost everything, Gidget said.
Sara and the other missionaries in Carigara had just five minutes to fill a backpack with belongings when they were rescued, Gidget said. But when Sara arrived in Tacloban, she gave her backpack with all her clothing to a woman whose home was destroyed in the storm. On the plane, she gave her ration of a water bottle and some snacks to another refugee.
By the time she arrived in Manila, Sara had just two sets of clothing and her scriptures left.
Other girls who were in Manila for training before leaving for their official assignments donated clothing to the refugee missionaries, Gidget said. But she has also made plans to send suitcases of clothing to the missionaries. In particular, she hopes to send cute outfits the young women will enjoy wearing.
“I am trying to find things—not just things, but cute things—to send them,” she said.
Gidget said she had an acquaintance whose wife has family in the Philippines. He planned to fly out next week to visit his relatives, and has offered to take the clothing with him to Manila.
Sara will have to learn a new language before she can begin proselytizing in her newly assigned area, Gidget said. Sara still hopes to return to Carigara before her mission ends. Female missionaries typically serve abroad for eighteen months.
“I know she wants to go back,” Gidget said. “She just loves the people.”