Despite the craziness of COVID19 and the fact that I haven't been out of the house for a week, I have a lot to share.
I'm going to start with Sister Syddall's return from Brazil... along with thousands of other missionaries, sent to their home countries due to this pandemic.
So, not only are we required to stay at home by our governor (AND our President for that matter), Sister Syddall has been told to "self-isolate" for at least 14 days, after which the plan is to be "temporarily" reassigned to the USA. With the numbers of missionaries that have returned, we are unsure about how long it might take for all those reassignments to happen, but as of now, she is still a set-apart missionary, and we are spending our quarantine helping her continue with a missionary schedule as much as possible. She gets up every day at 6:30am, and goes to bed by 10:30pm. She exercises, has personal study, participates in an Institute class for missionaries, practices Portuguese with other missionaries, meets up with her CTM district (virtually, of course) to practice teaching, and has even had an actual lesson with an old friend of hers from high school. She is impressive.
Bill has been working from home and is the designated errand runner. When he's going on a grocery run, I give him a very detailed list of items we need, and include any explanation I think is necessary before sending him on his way. He is currently on one of those shopping runs and he has called me...15 times. FIFTEEN. Sending him shopping is exhausting.
Back to Mar's return home.
We had received information that the missionaries in Brazil would be in quarantine, so Mar's Mission President had sent parents their missionary's phone number. The Sao Paulo Interlagos Mission was not yet a smart phone mission, so the only way to contact the missionaries was through a phone call. Bill and I called Mar on Sunday morning, the first day we were told we could call. We found out that we had to change our phone plan to included international calling, so we quickly did that. When we connected with Mar, she acted really funny and told us we shouldn't call or text her. She told us she would talk to us later, and after a quick hello from her companion, they hung up.
I figured that maybe Mauri didn't know that phone calls 3x a week had been approved and encouraged by her Mission President, so I emailed her the letter that was sent to us. Later that day we called back and were able to chat with her for a while. They had been shopping for food the day prior, and they were prepared for what they were told was a 40 DAY quarantine. She told us she hadn't had time to read her emails from that week because they only had a few minutes at the member's house they were at to use the computer. We gave her all the uplift we could, then told her we would talk to her again on Thursday... unless she got sent home. At this point the Church was bringing home missionaries from South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and Africa. I was hoping that the South American missionaries would be able to stay. Late Sunday night, after she and the other Sisters were in bed, the phone rang, and it was for Mar. She was the only non-Brazilian living in her house of 4 Sisters, and it was her zone leader telling her to pack her bags in the morning, call an Uber by noon, and be at a specific Stake Center by 2.
She was on a flight out of Sao Paulo by 10pm that evening, flew into Atlanta, GA, had a layover + a delayed flight, and arrived in Denver around 10:30am on Tuesday (March 24). THAT was a whirlwind.
Here are a few of her pictures from the CTM and from her 1 WEEK in the mission.
A pictorial. Enjoy.
It's been a blessing to have Sister Syddall home.
I am thankful that she was in the first wave out of Sao Paulo (those stories of other Brazil missionaries trying to get flights out later in the week stressed me out!). I am grateful my husband still has work. I am scheduled to go back to work next week (in the "essential" industry of tax accounting... even if I'm just office help). These are crazy times.
We will be patient as we wait for further instruction.
Even as I type we are being asked to social isolate for another 30 days by the President of the United States. Good thing we have GENERAL CONFERENCE to look forward to next week, and EASTER the following Sunday. And hopefully the weather will be beautiful and Spring-like from here on out.
And we have a new granddaughter!
Next up: meet Nora Jane
