Dear Friends and Family,
Well, our fears have been realized and we
are being sent home to complete our mission from our home in Tremonton,
Utah. For the last several weeks we have been pretty much confined to our
apartment. Church is cancelled, the temple is closed, there are no zone
conferences being held in any of the missions. We have been doing all of
our work from our apartment with telephone calls, e-mails and video
conferences. We can do those very same things from home.
The government has determined that we are
elderly (the most irritating part of this whole thing so far) and are therefore
in a high risk category. The church has decided that we would be safer at
home. One of the big problems I can see from this move back home is now I
am going to have to mow the lawn again.
We aren’t the only missionaries in our
mission who are returning home. All of the other senior couples, people
who have become very dear to us, are also being sent home. The only
exceptions are the two couples who are running the office. One of the
couples lives here locally. In addition, any of the young missionaries
with underlying health conditions will be sent home this week. On Tuesday
each mission president in our area received a list from the missionary
department with the names of missionaries who are at increased risk should they
become infected and who should be released to return home. The list
included all missionaries with diabetes, those on immune suppressing
medications, and most of the missionaries with a history of asthma. In
addition, missionaries who are emotionally fragile and who will not do well
with extended isolation to their apartments are also being given honorable
releases. I spent a lot of time this week going over those lists with mission
presidents and mission nurses. They are heartbroken to lose so many
wonderful young elders and sisters all at once and without much warning.
Also, as you know, all of the young elders are having their missions limited to
21 months so there is another group of missionaries that are going home
suddenly. In each mission it includes the assistants to the president and
many zone and district leaders. The entire mission will be in upheaval
for a while. But we know that many more missionaries will step up and
shine. Many proselyting areas will be closed temporarily but in a few
weeks each mission will receive a surge of missionaries who have been pulled
out of Japan, Korea, Singapore, the Philippines and Africa. It will be a
great help.
In the middle of all of our communication
back and forth with the missionary department Salt Lake City had an earthquake
and the church office building was evacuated for a day. It put a one day
pause on everything which was a bit frustrating but actually turned out to be
somewhat helpful. My brother Brett suggested that Utah has enough toilet
paper now that they can use it to fill in all the cracks caused by the
earthquake.
Carol and I are doing well. We go
for a walk each day which helps us from going stir crazy and as I mentioned
above we have had a busy week and haven’t had time to worry about too many
other things. After all of the ‘at risk’ missionaries go home this next
week our work load will be less for a while. We have a video conference
each month with each mission called a Mission Health Council. We discuss
missionaries with emotional and physical health problems. The meetings
typically last 60-90 minutes but I think they will be shorter for a while
because most of the missionaries on each mission’s health council list will be
released this week.
We are planning to return home on Friday
March 27. We will be travelling with the Kones a missionary couple from
Lincoln City, Oregon. Elder Kone has been sick recently and Sister Kone
is anxious about travelling across America without support so we will follow
them. We will eat take-out food along the way so will probably gain a
couple of pounds. We hope that we are able to find hotels that are open
as we travel but if not we will have some quilts in the car and will sleep
there. When we arrive home we have been advised to isolate ourselves for
a couple of weeks in case we happen to pick up the corona virus somewhere along
the way. We would hate to be the persons who infect Tremonton. Our
daughter Brooke is going to try and find some food to fill our refrigerator
with. And as we join the panic we are actually bringing a few rolls of
toilet paper home just in case we can’t find any in Utah.
Given the events of the last couple of
months we have decided that this would probably be a good time to consider
repenting. We intend to start right away. We do share President
Nelson’s optimism and we know that this will pass. This will change the
world and soften many hearts. People who are confined to home will have
time to listen to the message of the Restoration, even if over the phone or in
a video chat. The Lord will continue to hasten his work.
We feel like the corona virus has robbed
us of almost half of our mission and we will miss all of the wonderful people
we have come to know and love. We have treasured our association with the
incredible young elders and sisters in our eight missions but we take comfort
that in less that two years we will be able to experience all of this
again.
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| President Brett Clayton and Sister Lisa Clayton |
With
all of our sad news we do have a bit of good news. Through
the kindness of our good friend Anna here in our Fayetteville ward, last week
Carol and I sat in on a video chat
with Christian and two of his biologic siblings, Stefan and Maria. Anna
translated the conversation and we listened as they all quizzed each
other. Stefan and Maria live in and were talking to us from Spain where
Stefan works on a farm and Maria is an aide in a nursing home. Stefan
told Christian how happy he was to see him. He had learned about
Christian when he was six years old and had always wondered where he was.
He thought maybe Germany. He invited Christian to meet him in Romania and
they would go fishing. We are hoping to go in the summer of 2021 (if there is a vaccine by then) Maria is
very talkative and social. I have attached a couple of images we snapped
during the conversation. It was an amazing experience and one that we
never expected would ever happen. And it happened because the Lord sent
us to Georgia.
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| Lower row: Ana and Maria |
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| Lower row: Ana and Stefan |
God has been good to us.
We love all of you and hope this letter
finds you happy and healthy.
Elder and Sister, Mom and Dad, Grandpa
and Grandma Rod and Carol Merrell
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