Sunday,
March 15th turned out to be only a prelude of things to come. We had received word that we were not to meet
together in church, but could minister and have small group meetings at our
homes. We had a delightful Come Follow
Me lesson using internet video conferencing with Malory and her family, Ancsi
and Gareth, and our parents. Poor Malory
had to have her laptop on mute most of the time so we could hear each other
over Kennedy’s delightful, disruptive chatter.
We were not completely tech savvy, as we held up one computer in front
of the camera of another to share some videos, but everyone felt good about
“being together” if only via microphone and camera. Afterwards, we picked up the missionaries and
took the sacrament to two elderly sisters in the Pagedale Branch that we have
grown quite close to considering the short amount of time we have been
here. Then, we came back to our little
apartment and taught a temple preparation class to Sherri Cullen and shared
dinner with Sherri, her husband, and the missionaries. It all seemed pleasant and somewhat
sociable. Little did we know it would be
our last sacrament in a social setting for a while.
On
Monday, March 16th, it started to feel like the coronavirus was
causing the Church to take steps that would affect us in important ways, but
that would not radically change the work of the mission. That morning, we were told to give Elders
that had been out for 21 months the option to end their mission early if they
had some physical or emotional vulnerability.
The president called those who might qualify for early release, but he
had few takers. Before the day was over,
the option had turned into a mandate.
Now, many of our most senior missionaries would be going home early. We assumed that this might be to make room
for foreign serving missionaries who were apparently coming home for their
protection. But it was all a little
blurry.
On
Tuesday, a new communication came out that mandated the departure of all
missionaries, regardless of tenure, that might be physically or emotionally
vulnerable. We met together with the
Mission President and Sis Bell and the mission nurse to evaluate our
missionaries and make a working list of who might need to return home in
response to the communication from the area presidency. It is hard to express how difficult that
discussion was, realizing that these decisions would affect lives in real
ways.
On
Wednesday, we left work early to go to Sherri Cullen’s delightful, old, small
house to share a meal with her and Dan, her husband, and the Pagedale
missionaries. After a yummy pasta
dinner, we had another temple preparation lesson. We went back to the office afterwards, trying
to keep up with our work. Somewhat
humorously, we mimicked what the missionaries do—we made a short video and
posted it on the mission Facebook feed, exclaiming energetically that we had we
had “someone on date!” which means for the missionaries that someone had
committed to a baptismal date. In our
case, we had a member who had an appointment for receiving her endowment in the
St Louis temple on April 18th.
We were excited to be a part of her preparations.
Thursday,
March 19th was strange. We
held zone conference by video link. Ordinarily
we hold 3 zone conferences on 3 consecutive days in 3 different stakes,
rotating around the mission. This time,
we had 1 zone conference on 1 day by video.
So it was effectively a mission conference, with missionaries meeting in
their local churches to participate.
That way, there wouldn’t be more than 3 companionships in a building at
one time. On our end it was difficult,
because we set it up from Pres Bell’s office in the mission office. But it is too small for all the staff to get
into all at once, at least comfortably, especially with screens, cameras,
etc. It was the least participation I’ve
had in a conference since we’ve been here.
And of course, there was no feeding or eating with the
missionaries. They simply ate their sack
lunches they brought at a break. We
missed the fraternization with the young missionaries. Instead, we conferenced during the lunch
break further discussing which missionaries were candidates to return home.
Maybe
it was just as well that I couldn’t easily participate in zone conference. That morning, Pres Bell came in and asked me
to call the senior missionaries and let them know that they needed to return
home on instructions of the Church. That
was challenging in some cases where the seniors had been out only a fraction of
the mission they had planned to serve.
Many of them really had no place to go, having sold, rented, or put
family in their homes. Moreover, they
were asked to self-isolate themselves once they got home for two weeks. Pres Bell also asked me to contact stake
presidents so that they would be prepared to greet missionaries coming
home. He couldn’t preside at the zone
conference and quickly contact everyone that needed to know of the decisions to
send missionaries home. That same day,
we received word from the church that the missionaries should no longer go into
anyone’s home. This was really going to
change what the missionaries could do to contact and teach.
Saturday
the 21st, I spent a good part of the day greeting senior
missionaries that were departing that day and collecting apartment keys. I did my best to express my gratitude for
their service in the MSLM and encourage them to be safe and find alternative
ways to continue to share their valuable talents. I also cleaned and readied an apartment for
turning over to management. Sending so
many home, I wonder if there will be a lot of this in coming weeks and months.