Thankful

Friday night, as I lay in bed at the hotel in Bastrop (another post on that later), my legs felt like they were on pins and needles. Lovely pregnancy side effect. I couldn't sleep so I grabbed my phone and went to MSN.com. There on the front page was a headline about a breaking news story- Concepcion, Chile had just been hit with an 8.3 (later it changed to 8.8) earthquake. The story was still breaking, so there were no additional details.

Since my brother, Colin, is serving in the Concepcion, Chile mission, I immediately freaked out. I looked at the clock...1:30 am...that meant it was only 12:30 am in Utah. Not too, too late to call mom and dad. Besides, this was urgent. As soon as my mom answered she said, "I know. The earthquake. Tristan already called and we are on Skype with Ryan". We spent the next hour or so racking our brains trying to figure out how we might be able to get in touch with him. We tried calling the mission president, all of the meeting houses in Curico, and even thought to try to contact some of the members that had friended my mom on Facebook. I don't think any of us really got any sleep Friday night.

Saturday morning, probably around 11:30 am, my mom called while we were at the nursing home and said she had received a brief email message from Colin. He was able to use someone's Blackberry to let my mom know he was ok. Thank goodness for technology!

We just got a another short email from him today. I think he is downplaying the damage in order to make my mom feel better, but he sounds good. They are going to be very busy for a while helping members clean up and rebuild. We are very thankful that he is safe and sound and has been able to send us brief messages.