She's baaaaaaack.

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

So long, farewell, tchau!

Suddenly my Blogger font looks super small.

Is is just me? Am I just getting old?

I've adjusted the font size to "large" and now it looks normal. (That is what you see right now... large/not large font.)

Seriously so dumb.

I hate updates!!! I've struggled with them for years on all things tech. Most updates, in my opinion, are unnecessary and do NOT improve my user experience, but they DO increase my user frustration. UGH!

On to my post.

All these amazing people came for Mar's mission farewell:

It was amazing that they all flew in on the same flight = one trip to DIA. Thanks, Kody, for coordinating it!

Lauren flew in for it, too... the only pic I snapped of her was the night before. (I really need to up my photo game these days.)

Mauri gave a fantastic talk, and had a ton of support from friends, family, and our Legend Ward. We had a little open house after our block of church meetings.

Mauri and Tori performed this sweet song:

We had a fairly large group of ward members stop by later in the day, so we were talking and hosting much longer than our planned 2 hours. It was a great day.

We ended it in Syddall style... playing games.

Shi and Kody headed back to UT, and Lauren back to ID on Monday, everyone else was heading out Tuesday. We went out for lunch (which covered dinner, too, because we were so full).

Mar and I drove this group to the airport on Tuesday after snapping this selfie:

It was so wonderful having everyone there.

My dad had suffered a really bad back injury the month prior, and we weren't sure he would be able to make the trip. I'm sure he endured some pain and discomfort, but we were so glad to have him with us.

The next week our basement was a packing zone. Mauri also wanted to be sure and get in a few things before leaving... like taking the dogs on a walk.

I joined a FB group for moms of missionaries in Brazil two days before Mar's departure date, only to find out a few tidbits of advice resulting in some last minute shopping (no time for Amazon by then). I was grateful I joined when I did haha.

By Monday evening (Feb 3), Mar was packed and well under the weight requirements (makes me a bit nervous that she should have taken more stuff... but I know she'll survive! Our Stake President, who also served in Brazil, said that when he served, one of the Elders in his mission came with one paper bag... that was everything he had for his mission. MAR WILL SURVIVE).

 Our appointment with the Stake President for her to be set apart was at 9pm, so we went to dinner before. It was a very snowy night AND a weekday/school night, so Chili's was the best (and closest) option.

We made it to the Stake President's home 5 minutes early, and unintentionally caused a small disruption of the setting apart of another sister missionary {in process}. Ooops. This Sister was also going to the Brazil MTC the following day, and another Brazil Elder was getting set apart after Mar. We were relieved to know she would at least have some traveling companions and would NOT experience the crazy travel issues Shilo had when she flew to the England MTC.

Tuesday, February 5

DEPARTURE DAY

Our sweet neighbor stopped by to say goodbye.

 Mar said a final goodbye to the pups.

And we had a few tender moments, too.

\

She ripped off the final link to her countdown chain.

 133 days (from the time she made the chain... soon after her call came). Phew! That was a long wait.

And we were off.

We had some waiting time at the airport, since Mar had to check her bags 3 hours prior to her take-off time. 

We saw an Elder checking in before us, but then didn't see them again. I spotted another family who I suspected had a sister missionary, and I wanted to go find them, but then we ran into the family of the Elder from our Stake also leaving on the same flight. We chatted with them for a while, then chatted with the family of the sister missionary I had spotted earlier. Their daughter had already headed to security, so after a few more minutes of conversation, Mar decided she had better get going to security. We had asked if Mar could have one of us get a gate pass to go with her, and were told "no," darn it.

It was tough to watch her go, but I felt comforted that she had others that would be with her all the way to the MTC in Brazil. Bill and I watched the first leg of the flight (to Dallas), then that evening I put the flight tracker on again to watch her progress to Brazil. It was getting fairly late in the evening, and I was occasionally glancing to see how far the plane had gone, when I noticed that the plane was all of a sudden turned in the opposite direction. WHAT???

We called the airline. We called the "24 hour" missionary travel number (not 24 hour, btw). I got on the missionary moms FB page to share the information that the plane had turned around (I had commented on a post earlier from another mom sending a daughter who would be catching the same flight in Dallas). I was pretty stressed out and couldn't help thinking "Are you kidding me?"

The flight had been diverted to Miami due to an aggressive/unruly passenger (Mar thought the passenger was in first class - none of the missionaries saw anything that made them feel nervous or threatened). For the next 17+ hours the departure time of the original flight to Sao Paulo changed incrementally... a half hour to an hour at a time. Mar sent me a quick text the next morning that their flight had turned around and they were in Miami (which I already knew haha). In her text she told me they were just getting ready to board (around 10am my time) to take off. I kept watching the departure time on the airline's website, and could see it was constantly changing. Mauri gave me a quick call (from a borrowed phone for both the text and call, so I had no way to contact her) later in the day saying they had boarded earlier, sat for two hours, then they were unboarded (is that a word?). They had spent the entire 17+ hours on stand-by. The airline had given them a couple food vouchers for their trouble. FINALLY their flight took off - they would be arriving in Sao Paulo around 2:30am on Thursday.

During that day - Wednesday - the day the missionaries spent in Miami - the day they were supposed to be arriving in Sao Paulo early that morning, getting to the MTC around 8 or 9 am, a man had entered the Brazil MTC and threatened the President. He had a knife, but the security had detained him and called the police. When the police arrived, the man became aggressive, and the police shot him. Dead.

CRAZY. All the frustration I had felt from the diverted flight and the delay in Mar getting to the MTC faded as I realized it was A MIRACLE. A blessing. A tender mercy. That group of 21 missionaries on the flight from Dallas to Sao Paulo were very likely protected from danger - physical and psychological.

Another "exciting" missionary travel story for the future.

I have missed Mar this week!

I have been so so tired (all the late-night-to-early-mornings + seminary + work + cleaning up Mar's whirlwind). We have received only ONE email so far - the morning she arrived - to say she was there. Obviously her P-day in the MTC (or CTM) is not Monday, since it has come and gone without a word. It's not Tuesday - that's come and gone, too. Maybe tomorrow? I'm anxious to hear from her and to see how she's coping with a rigors of MTC life.

I know she's ready.