NOT RELEASED, JUST TRANSFERRED

We have been back in Utah a week now.  It appears that our Missionary Department directed two-week self-isolation period will be in effect extended by Utah Governor Herbert’s stay-at-home directive announced on Friday.  Driving to the grocery store will still be allowed.  Our daughter Heather had bought groceries for us prior to our arrival and they are tremendously appreciated. There were still a few things we thought maybe we should get while we still had the opportunity.  Walmart’s delivery service is great!  Eileen ordered and paid for our groceries on-line and then someone came to deliver the goods.  No face-to-face interaction required.  The Governor also encouraged people to order takeout dining to support the locale economy, a suggestion that Eileen and I anticipate following with pleasure.  Although we are confined to our home, life is pretty good here.  We are especially feeling spoiled with hot water, a dishwasher, a clothes dryer, spring flowers blooming outside, and the sounds of neighbor children playing rather than the sounds of motorcycles and jeepneys driving nearby. I hope we can continue to recognize how blessed we are and not become so accustomed to our lifestyle here that we take it for granted and fail to give thanks to God from whom it all came.  We look forward to the time when we will be able to see and interact with our family members rather than just through car windows or over Skype or FaceTime.

We have been in contact with several members of our mission in Antipolo this week.  I (Russell) have exchanged about a dozen emails with the new office elders answering questions.  On Friday night I used FaceTime to do a more in-depth training on missionary housing issues.  The elders are doing a great job.  I’m amazed at how fast they have picked things up and how well they are dealing with the chaotic situation they have been thrust into.  Their technical support, the Area office personnel and I, are all working from home. The Antipolo branch of the bank we use just announced that they are closed until April 14^th.  A manned barricade on the street near the mission office did not allow any access to our office for the first few days this week.  Fortunately, our office guard, Mackie, was able to work out a pass so that President and Sister Alder, Sister Gibson, the two AP’s and the two office elders could get in to work there. 

Eileen has communicated a few times this week with Sister Alder.  She told Eileen that there have been no medical calls from the young missionaries since we left.  Prior to our departure, Eileen would field several calls a day, between 90-110 recordable cases per month.  Most cases involved multiple calls or text messages.  While I do believe that the Lord is looking out for His missionaries during this difficult time, I can also understand why the missionaries would not want to call with any health issues for fear of being told they should go see a doctor at either a local hospital or clinic.  Hospitals and clinics seem to have gone from being considered as places of refuge to potential sources of contracting the virus.

There have been many miracles, large and small, that have happened over the last couple weeks.  One example - on Thursday morning at 1 AM, Eileen woke up and went downstairs.  I followed her wondering why she was up.  I found her downstairs looking at her phone.  She said that Sister Alder had sent a brief text message just 10 minutes earlier.  We keep the phones on our main floor and cannot hear when messages come in while we are upstairs, particularly when we are asleep in bed.  Sister Alder had a pressing family issue and needed some medical advice quickly. As I listened in on the subsequent FaceTime conversation, I realized that my wife had been woken from her sleep by the Holy Ghost so that she could minister to Sister Alder’s urgent need.  In our work I have found that what the world considers as coincidences are actually just small miracles.  The challenge for me is, am I in tune enough with The Spirit to recognize them? 

On Thursday evening we were to meet (via Skype) with our stake president, President Dushku, regarding what would happen to our calling as full-time missionaries.  From information we received from the clerk making the appointment, we learned that the possible outcomes were: (i) total release; (ii) temporary release with reinstatement when/if return to the Philippines became possible; or (iii) in the unlikely event that we could foresee 32 hours or more of work per week supporting remotely the mission in Antipolo, we could remain as full-time missionaries. While we both intend on continuing to support the Antipolo mission in any way we can, realistically it will not qualify as full-time.  We would also like to return to Antipolo if conditions surrounding the pandemic allow us to do so prior to our scheduled release in December.  On Thursday morning we called Art Johnson, our former manager at Senior Missionary Services, to see if he needed any help.  He did, and so for now we will continue as full-time missionaries serving both to remotely support the Philippines Antipolo Mission and work on projects in Senior Missionary Services (part of the Missionary Department).

We are most grateful for all those behind the scenes who made our repatriation possible. In the last couple of weeks there have been thousands of missionaries who have returned home from all over the world. It is all rather mind-boggling. Since I (Eileen) am usually in charge of our travel plans, I recognizes to some extent the huge effort that was made on our behalf and that of others. I truly believe that it is a miracle that travel arrangements have been able to be made. The Lord is surely mindful of His missionaries. 

  

This morning we had two wonderful things happen. A friend "heart attacked" our door and left messages in Tagalog, and our son brought over a full package of TP.  The kindness of others has been wonderful

RELUCTANTLY GOING HOME

Just last Saturday (March 14), I (Russell) was trying to absorb all Elder Bills could teach me about the mission financial secretary role.  And today, just seven days later, I am sitting in a hotel near the airport waiting to board a plane sometime tomorrow to return home.  On Tuesday we got the word that almost all foreign missionaries, both young and senior (approximately half our mission), would be sent home.  Last week I was concerned about how I was going to do what both Elder Bills and I had been doing for the last eight months.  Today I am concerned about how two young Filipino missionaries are going to do what both of us had been doing.  While my eight hours of training was far from the desired norm of four weeks, at least I have a financial background and some familiarity with the computer programs.  The four days of training for the first elder (Caguicla) and one day for the other (Abquina) was at best woefully inadequate and at worst cruel and unusual punishment.  However, I was impressed at their positive attitudes and how quickly they picked things up.  I will be trying to support them from home the best I can, as Eileen will try and continue helping out with the medical role.  How successful we can be in helping from halfway around the world is a concern to all involved.

Not only has our life in the office changed dramatically over the last two weeks but life in general has, all due to the pandemic.  Church services have been canceled, almost all businesses are closed, lines at grocery stores and ATMs are long, traffic on the roads is light, and police/military manned blockades restrict travel in a number of locations.  In general, the locals are scared of the coronavirus and don’t need to be told twice to stay home and wait it out. 

Leaving a mission is usually an emotional experience; doing it quickly and unexpectedly just makes it more so.  We both feel terrible about the mess we are leaving President and Sister Alder in.  Most of the progress we had made since starting the mission from scratch (in the office, in the medical care, and in the living conditions of the missionaries) seems to just have taken a big hit.  We will miss the Alders greatly and they will be in our prayers.  

Seeing half the mission leave was hard on the Alders and the missionaries that remained behind.  Our foreign missionaries within Metro Manila (the Pasig and Taguig zones) were not allowed to meet with President Alder prior to their departure due to the travel restrictions.  Three of the other zones left on Wednesday from the mission office.  We and the Siniloan zone missionaries did not, just because there was not enough room to do so.

This morning just before we left, Lance and Grace came over to say goodbye.  It was an emotional time for all four of us.  One great thing about this mission that cannot be taken away by the virus pandemic is our association with them.  That will live on, in this life and the next.

I am indeed grateful for the opportunity to have served here in the Philippines Antipolo Mission, to serve with Eileen as my companion, and to be a representative of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We got very short notice that we were going to leave this morning. As it turned out we didn't leave for several more days. This was the last of the office missionaries.

Sisters departing for the hotel, taking a photo of us departing for the hotel.

Lots of tears were shed as the last of the Americans left President and Sister Alder.

We stayed one night at the airport Marriott, hot water, a bathtub and our TV says our name on it. Have we entered another universe?  We were duly impressed. Sack lunches were delivered to our doors, rice and a small amount of meat. HMMM, that didn't seem like Marriott food, but it was free and we didn't have to prepare it!

Our view out our hotel window. It is hard to believe that the city is on lockdown.

Elder Wacolo of the Philippines Area Presidency came to address us at 5:45 a.m.

Missionaries listening to Elder Wacolo

Some of the Antipolo missionaries

Sister Torkonoo studying scriptures among all the visiting missionaries

We were all woken up at 4:30 a.m. and told to be in the lobby for departure by 5:30 a.m. We didn't end up leaving the hotel until 10:30 a.m. by which time we were all rather hot and exhausted.

A few Antipolo missionaries at the airport

The line of missionaries waiting to check in was incredibly long. Over 1,600 missionaries left on five charter flights this afternoon and one commercial flight the night before.  There were just a handful of people at the airport other than the missionaries. 

Families were instructed to stay in their cars for pickup in SLC. Our daughter Heather became creative in welcoming us back home.

Trying to be careful by wearing masks. 

We are now on a 14 day quarantine. Although neither of us is sick, we want to make sure that there isn't any possibility that someone thinks they got sick from us. The Church has instructed all returning missionaries to be on a 2 week quarantine whether or not they are feeling ill.

RESTORATION AND RESTRICTIONS

President Russell M. Nelson has asked all of us to prepare for April Conference by immersing ourselves in the glorious light of the Restoration! We did just that in Zone Conference this past week. On both Wednesday and Thursday approximately 70 missionaries came together each day in the Antipolo stake center to be edified and inspired through the message of the Restoration. Missionaries were challenged by President Alder a couple of months ago to study about the Restoration and invited us to find a creative way to share our feelings with our fellow missionaries at Zone Conference. I (Eileen) was able to attend both full days of presentations and came away uplifted, with a desire to increase my study of the Restoration and of the life of Joseph Smith. I was amazed by the remarkable talents shared by our missionaries. Artwork was done, poems were read, and several original musical numbers were performed. I determined a few weeks ago that I would like to share a musical number. During the time I was convalescing from my pneumonia, I was able to scour the internet looking for piano solos. I finally decided to play a medley consisting of three songs, “Oh, how Lovely was the Morning,” “Praise to the Man” and “We Thank Thee oh God for a Prophet.” I was excited to find a video online consisting of short clips of Joseph Smith’s life, which were matched with the music I had chosen. The video started at the First Vision and continued with snippets of his life through the martyrdom, and then ended with just a few seconds of him kneeling in the grove. It was a wonderful way for me to reflect on the life of Joseph Smith.  If you are interested in viewing the talents of our missionaries you can view them on the Philippines Antipolo Mission site on Facebook. 

It seems like Zone Conference was a haven away from the chaos which has been occurring due to the Coronavirus. I have done a great deal of reading on this illness over the last several weeks. I am not sure if my acute interest is because I was in the hospital recently with a respiratory infection, or if  I just feel like it is important for me as the mission nurse to stay up to date on medical news, I view the news several times a day. At night when I can’t sleep, I open the news online to see what the current status is. It seems like the news changes quickly, sometimes from hour to hour. A couple of weeks ago during the night I felt impressed that our missionaries should be advised to do three things: 1) Have a supply of food to get them through a possible quarantine; 2) Have enough medications on hand so that if they are sick they won’t need to run to a pharmacy; and 3) Stop shaking hands.  This last week saw direction from our Area Presidency implementing these ideas, and just in time. Thursday evening President Duterte, who is the president of the Philippines, gave a news conference stating that the Metro Manila area would be put under “lockdown” starting Sunday March 15^th at 12:01 AM. Even before he gave his news conference, panic had set in. Stores were packed with shoppers. The grocery store where we shop had people triple parked. Fortunately we had gone to the store the week previously and stocked up on some food items after feeling prompted to do so. You can’t put very much food in an apartment as small as ours, but we have enough that we wouldn’t starve if we couldn’t go to the store.  The Filipino government is trying to take drastic measures to stop the spread of the virus.  Two of our six zones are now within the lockdown area. The only people that can go in and out of the Metro Manila area are those with valid work IDs requiring them to work. Malls and restaurants have closed down. Our missionaries who are in the contained area are to a degree on their own for at least another month. It also means that missionaries who get sick outside of the contained zone, will not be able to visit the doctor in the area where I usually send the more serious cases. It gives me cause to seriously reflect how badly a missionary needs to go to the doctor.

This week was supposed to be transfer day on Wednesday, which means we would get a new batch of missionaries. Since the missionaries were all at the MTC which is in the lockdown area, they were sent spur-of-the-moment to our mission yesterday. A lot of effort was made to get transfers done five days early.  

Friday morning our office couple Elder and Sister Bills, were informed that they and some other senior missionaries would be leaving the Philippines on Saturday evening for precautionary medical reasons. This decision was made at the Area level. Honestly, I thought we would be going home with my having recently had pneumonia. I guess as Russell said, we made the “medical cut” - at least this time around. What now has happened is that all the duties which Elder Bills did previously are now being coordinated by Russell to make sure they get done. Russell spent all day at the office on Saturday with Elder Bills, trying to learn in a day what is usually taught in a month; and we both spent the day at the office today trying to complete needed tasks.  We weren’t alone at the office as missionaries were coming and going all day long with the accelerated transfer schedule.

As I was going into the office today thinking how crazy it seems like life is getting, I was notified by email about a new video put out by our prophet just this morning. As I viewed it, I was gratified for the presence of a prophet on earth. He brings peace and hope to what can sometimes  be considered a chaotic existence. I know our Heavenly Father loves his children and is aware of their needs. I am not sure how the future will play out. I just know I have to put my trust in Him.

These missionaries are obviously not obeying the Coronavirus separation precautions.

Making a transfer

Pasta on bread?

Elder Allred on the left is feeling much after a recent bout with Dengue

Elder Briggs teaching the zone

Eileen playing a Restoration medley

Sister Gibson reading a poem on the prophet Joseph

Russell gave out fire extinguishers to the missionaries so each apartment would have one

Coronavirus signs at the front of the grocery store. Your temperature is checked and alcohol spread on  your hands as you go in.

Meat anyone?

SHE'S ALIVE

The doctor told Eileen that if she was not better by this last week, following her latest round of antibiotics, that she should come back to see him.  Reluctantly, with some coaxing from me, she did so on Tuesday. The internist referred her to a pulmonologist, also in the same clinic.  Eileen was prescribed another antibiotic and continuation of some other medications she has been taking.  This would have been her third oral antibiotic, in addition to some IV antibiotics given while in the hospital. Feeling a bit frustrated that she was not getting better after more than a month, Eileen called the AMA (the Philippines Area Medical Advisor, a doctor from the U.S.) that she as the mission nurse consults with on difficult cases.  He questioned if she was being over-medicated.  Eileen decided to forgo the new antibiotic and stop the other things she was taking and within a day was coughing much less and feeling better!  I have wondered if she was having a bad reaction to one or a combination of the medications she was on.  On both Thursday and Friday Eileen returned to the office for portions of the days.  Both of us realized just how long it had been that she had been house bound when Eileen commented on how bad the traffic had become on our way to the office.  The traffic has not changed.

I (Russell) have been going to a gym across the street most mornings when it opens at 7:00 AM.  Yesterday as I was looking out at the street from the treadmill, the traffic was almost at a standstill for quite a while.  First a fire truck and then an ambulance came.  I could tell that it was close but could not actually see what had happened.  It turns out that just after I had crossed the street (a major road here - three lanes each direction), a jeepney lost it’s breaks and hit a number of pedestrians in front of WalterMart; killing two and injuring several other, one of which was a new security guard at our apartment complex.  The government is trying to get the jeepneys off the roads within a couple years.  Given what I have seen of them it is a wise course of action.

This week the Philippines Area Presidency sent out a letter to the 23 missions here regarding the coronavirus.  This letter was then shared with parents of the young missionaries.  In it, they instructed the missionaries to no longer shake hands, fist or elbow bump, or hug others.  This is something Eileen has been advocating for a while.  Yesterday it was reported in the news that three more cases (total of six) were diagnosed in the Philippines.  Two of those are a couple in their early 60’s who live in Cainta, a city within our mission just a few miles west of our apartment.  We are fortunate to not have the number of cases that those in Japan or Korea are facing.  Asking that the spread of the virus be contained and that those affected may be comforted and protected has become a regular part of my daily prayers.

Eileen took this photo in a bathroom of a nice restaurant. Quite often when she uses the restroom, or comfort room as they call it here, there are foot prints on the toilet seat. I guess there are a lot of women who sit like frogs out there.

RELAPSE

Eileen’s recovery from pneumonia took a turn this last week - just not the right direction.  Her cough has just persisted and by Tuesday was bad enough she went to the doctor.  He proscribed some medications, including another antibiotic, and told her to come back in a week if the cough had not gone away.  In church today they read a letter from the Area Presidency over the pulpit.  The letter asked members not to attend the temple or other church meetings if the had any flu-like symptoms, including a cough.  I (Russell) was glad Eileen had decided to stay home today.  She continues to field phone calls from the missionaries about their health and give advice from our apartment.

My activities this past week sound a lot like most other weeks.  I have been trying to find and rent apartments, close down old ones, do apartment inspections, and shop for appliances and other apartment items.  I think I am the local Ace Hardware and Shop-Wise’s best customer.  The novel things this week were: I fixed one sisters apartment’s washing machine; and helped two sisters catch a mouse.  If you know me well then you have to admit, my fixing a washing machine that wouldn’t drain is pretty much a miracle.

The mouse on the other hand did not experience a miracle.  The sisters had told me they found evidence of a rodent in their kitchen and I advised the sticky-paper/glue type trap.  It seems to work well here.  However, this time the sisters reported that only hair was found stuck to the glue covered plastic board.  So now they had a rodent with a bald spot!  Since Eileen was home sick, I took the APs with me and we bought a “live” cage type trap at a hardware store and bait from the local bakery.  One of the APs, Elder Ivins, asked me if I was going to tell the sisters what to do with the rodent if they caught it.  I told him it would work best if we took it one step at a time.  This morning at 6:30 I got a call from the sisters.  They had a mouse in the trap and wanted to know what to do with it.  I told them to fill a large bucket with water and then put the trap in the bucket.  If they had been in the province then perhaps they could have released it “into the wild.”  But given where they live in the city, the mouse just got to go cage diving.

This sign was at the door of the hospital. Similar signs (although smaller) are at each mall and store.

View from the front of a jeepney. Russell was sitting in the front giving directions. On one visit he was sitting on a plastic chair which didn't sound very safe to Eileen.

The bunk beds were being delivered in a jeepney. This is Russell's view looking towards the back.

Taking the bunkbeds out.  We paid for delivery and women and their children showed up.

Random electrical line hanging down in front of our car

Setting the trap