As the Wold turns upside down

Our wonderful Elder Rees, who went home months ago, said to us,

"You guys came in with a bang(ompong typhoon) and you're going out with a bigger bang!! Way to go sisters! Something about you two serving makes the world and weather turn upside down.

Let us show you our last little bit of picture and life in Laoag and then we'll tell you about our escape.

Long before the Coronavirus was around the Tri-C driver all wore mask as they rode their bikes. There were so many kinds but we only got pictures of a few of them

One on our last walks in the Laoag.

Down the Barangay

Up the path to the bridge. We climbed along side the goats.

 One of my all-time favorite pictures or should I say sign.

Our exodus out!

Wednesday, March 11, 2020:

The Laoag Mission Tour began with Elder Bangerter coming to our mission for the mission tour.

Wednesday our first conference was held in Laoag and the following day President and Sister Peterson took the Bangerters up to Cagayan for Zone Conference for the other half of the mission

Thursday, March 12:

Thursday night Elder Bangerter spent the whole night on the phone with the General Authorities discussing church concerns of the Coronavirus. Our night was day time in the states and for the General Authorities so this was the best time for them all to talk.

Friday morning Elder Bangerter then went to Zone Conference in Cagayan and following his morning instruction he informed the missionaries that they were now in the last large gathering in the church. That the Church had said no church is large gatherings for the time being because of the virus. Sacrament meeting would be held in the home.

Although he had been up all night and had taught a Zone Conference, he looked refreshed, alert and was attentive Sister Peterson said. She said, he would have up to 200 phone calls or texts coming to him during a day that he would be taking care of. With all that coming at him he never lost track of where he was in their conversations. He was extremely good at multitasking.

It was learned during that night discussion that the church would no longer be holding sacrament meetings or any large gatherings of any kind. Church would now be held in the home. They also learned that Manila would go on lockdown on Sunday. We had to act quickly. Although the Bangerters had their tickets home we needed to quickly get them back to Manila before Sunday. We also had new missionaries due to arrive on Wednesday that we now needed to get here sooner.

Then we had three young sister missionaries that were to go home Tuesday and our Senior Sisters, Sister Robinson and Sister Dryzich who were to go home on the 8th of April and would now need to get to Manila before it closed all entrances in two days.

As the Bengerters and the President started for home Friday afternoon Sister Peterson sent out a text telling the missionaries of different food items to buy and stock up on.

Three of our office elders who got the word out to everyone. 
Elder Childers, Elder Burton, and Elder Lalamoro

*Interesting to note: When Elder Bangerter got his call to be an Area Seventy he was called to a place other than the Philippines. About three weeks before going his assignment was changed to the Philippines.

In the Philippines because the Catholic church is so strong here it is almost impossible to get a divorce. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints allows people in the Philippines, that are not divorced from their first wife or husband, to get married to another person IF they have lived together for several years. They can never go to the temple but the church will recognize their marriage and then allow them to get baptized. This has been a great concern.

Elder Bangerter worked for over 30 years as a lawyer for churches. (not Catholic or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.)

To back up just a little you must understand that the third Pope in Line is the Red Pope. He is Filipino. He moved up the line quickly because the two before him wanted the notoriety but not all the stress that goes with being a Pope so they moved to the side. That moved this Filipino Pope up the line quickly. This Filipino Pope, however, had had some words with some of our church leaders in the Philippines and there was some hard feeling there.

Recently Elder Cook (?) met the Red Pope. As Elder Cook was introducing himself, to the Red Pope he spent a good length of time telling the Pope of others (Cardinals) that he had met and why he respected each one of them. This experience then softened the heart of the Red Pope and he said he would try to work with us to get law or legislation in place (like the Muslims have in the Philippines) for our members to get a legal divorce there. We now have a softened Red Pope and Elder Bangerter who knows the law working together. Miracles never cease to amaze us.

Saturday, March 21:

At 7:00 am we were all surprised to have two van loads of missionaries from the MTC show up at the mission home. We had heard talk of getting them coming before the lock-down but didn’t know until Saturday morning when they would be here. We then became busy getting tickets for the Senior Sisters, Sister Robinson, and Sister Drzayich as well as three Sister Missionaries so they could leave that day and get to Manila before the lock-down the next day. We also needed to get food and feed the new missionaries, then train them, have them fill out forms and get ID’s for them.The AP’s and president started working hard to get them placed with other missionaries at least until Wednesday when exchanges are done.

Sunday, March 15:

The missionaries met as districts and had Sacrament Meeting. Sister Snyder and I met with Elder and Sister Ward and President and Sister Peterson in the Peterson home (mission home) to have our Sacrament Meeting. We also discuss the events of the Zone Conference and what we needed to do now.

The Missionaries went out to member families in their area and taught them to use the, “Come Follow Me” Manual for their Sacrament Meeting.

The missionaries were touched by the member reactions to “Come Follow Me” lessons and they loved administrating the sacrament.

Following Sacrament Meeting the president asked me to send emails to all the missionary parents letting them know what was happening. As the President spent the afternoon rewriting his previous letter to parents, I went to get the emails set up. I had 148 emails ready to go once the president gave me the letter to insert into all of them.                                              

Office Elder,    Elder Gutay  made AP once we left.

Many of the Filipinos do not have emails so we made a list of the ones that didn’t and Elder Gutay called each missionary to see who we could contact on Messenger to send this letter to their family. This took hours on Sunday afternoon. Sister Snyder and I were able to feed the elders one last time Sunday evening as well.

Our IMOS system was supposed to send out the letters (206) but was not working and that was the case for missions throughout the world. The IMOS people were working on another system for us to use but until then we had to do it the hard way.

Monday, March 16:

We learned this was a lockdown day for Laoag so the AP’s spent more time exercising this day as they tried to figure out what they could do. Elder Gutay and I began early to send all the letters through Messenger to missionaries that didn’t have emails. We also organized and put away paperwork for new missionaries and prepared the paperwork for when they would come back in.

Tuesday, March 17:

On this morning we first heard the news that we were to pack and go home. We were told to be packed and be ready to go by 6 am tomorrow. We were in shock! The president also needed another letter to go out to parents letting them know. The day was spent packing, clearing out food, clothing and preparing emails as well as messenger letters to be sent.

Wednesday, March 18:

The president asked me if Elder Gutay knew how to do the emails because he now wanted to inform parents that they were headed home in a day or two. I quickly checked my email carefully and found where an email had come in saying that the new IMOS system was ready to go. I got it set up and the president came in and typed his letter to parents (The slickest and easiest way to go. A click of the button and all 206 letters went out). All that was left was for Elder Gutay to figure out how to send it out once things slowed down and he could read the Manual. What a wonderful miracle I felt this was. I truly believed the Lord was standing right next to us and helping us. To me this was such a sweet blessing of relief that this, at least would be easier for the mission home to handle.

The morning found the mission office being inundated with missionaries as they all arrived. There were over 10 vans lined up to give us rides to Manila. All transportation-like buses were canceled so Steve had found several people who would take us.

Sister Peterson made a trip to the government office to get paperwork to get us out and into Manila. They asked her for a list of everyone going. She then went home and made the list. When she returned to the office, they asked another thing and she went home once again and wrote it all down.

(Back in February we had a new set of Senior Missionaries come. 
They are the Roundtrees from Page Arizona.)

We were ready to go at 6 am Wednesday morning. We all sat around and waited for the health department to come and check us to see if we had any signs of the virus.  We were also waiting to see if the Cagayan could get down to us and go with us. Elder and Sister Roundtree and a couple of missionaries showed up before we left and they went with us. Once the health check finally got done, we waited for the Mayor to give us the paperwork of approval for us to leave. We then left at 1:00 pm

All along the way, we knew places to eat would be closed down so Sister Peterson rounded up what she could and made a snack for each van. As we traveled, we had 5 checkpoints to go through. The first and last ones were the only ones who stopped us and checked our temperature.

Luckily the only problem was one van had a flat and no spare. Between all the vans they were able to work it out. The drivers had been told that we would go to Clark International airport because it wasn’t under lockdown. About an hour before we got to Manila Cheeto calls and informed the drivers that they will have to take us into Manilla.

The vans then stopped and Steve tells the drivers. They are not very happy about going into the lock-down zone. They worry about being taken into quarantine there in Manila. Soon the drivers get used to the idea and we go on our way. We are very blessed to have no problems as they check us at the last checkpoint at Manila and we go in.

The Cagayan missionaries had much farther to go than us. They left Cagayan at 5:00 am and got to the MTC at 2:00 am. With transportation at a standstill in Cagayan, the missionaries had to find members willing to take them to the border in anything they had. Once at the border, many members were frightened of quarantine and so they asked the missionaries to get out and take their luggage and walk across the border. 

Once they reached the mission home, a sister missionary told me that they walked into the Mission Office and no one was in the office. Elder Wilson, our previous AP then began to cry. I think of the mixed feeling he must have had. I like to think that one of them was the same one I had and that was that we were deserting President Peterson and Sister Peterson to do a job that seemed overwhelming. As he saw the empty office, he may have felt that they may never be able to staff it completely again. Another feeling he may have had were of the sweet memories that we all shared there and to finally have to say good-bye. It is a tender memory to think of that (sometimes cocky elder) crying there.
                                           

         Former AP Elder Willson

We arrive at the MTC at 12:30 am and the place is busy with buses coming in from all over and dropping off missionaries. Missionaries and drivers were lined up at the cafeteria to try and get something to eat.

Once fed, the drivers headed the long drive back to Laoag. As they passed the five checkpoints that we had gone through everyone at the checkpoints were suited up in hazard suits. In that couple of hours after we left and the drivers returned, they had all suited up. They had gotten word that our area was free of the virus and they were determined to keep it that way. Our drivers made it safely back through each checkpoint but they all went back and went into quarantine for fourteen days. Thank you all for you sacrifice!

Sister Snyder and were informed that they had a room for us (many slept on floors or lawns because the MTC holds 300 missionaries and they have over 1,000 missionaries there.) They informed us that we would be in the Elder dorms and that we would need to share the dorm room (unfriendly bunkbeds for old folks) with another older couple.

I asked them to repeat that! I came to the MTC where I was to sleep in a room with 2 other women and a MAN? 

I informed them that I hadn’t slept with a man in over 40 years. I wondered how it would be to have us all trying to dress, shower and get ready in the morning. I then told Sister Snyder that we would take the top bunks because the older couple surely couldn’t climb up those three slates and hopefully we wouldn’t need to go to the restroom during the night. We were surprised and counted our blessings when the next morning we found the other couple had not shown up. I thought maybe they heard the same thing and felt as uncomfortable as we did. They told me the next day they slept in the medical office and they were just fine.  

As we were escorted to our room, the guide opened the door to our dorm room and every bed was full of missionaries. When asked why they were in our room they informed us that they were to sleep outside but as they passed this room, they found it empty so they took advantage of it (19-year old’s right?).

Well, they gathered up all their belongings and left and we went in and found no towels, top sheet or blanket. Yes, life is a challenge at 12:30 am in the MTC.

                                            Life back in the MTC

Thursday, March 19:

The MTC President met with each group. He told us that we were to stay in the closed-in area and not go out where anyone could see how many missionaries were here. They were worried that if the government found out they would put a stop to it. He also asked the missionaries to not go through the lunch lines more than twice. He said they wanted them satisfied but was not sure about the food lasting. As Sister Snyder and I lined up the elders in front of us said that this was their third time through. I was surprised and mentioned what the president had said but they just stood there; Again they are nineteen-year-olds.

From what we understood the Samoans island was locked down so their missionaries would stay in the Philippines.  This is one of ours saying goodbye as he heads back out.

There are 22 missions in the Philippines (82 dialects ) and they were trying to bring all the foreigners within the 72 hours’ time frame that the Manila Government gave us (they later extended that for a longer time). There were 1,800 missionaries trying to make it to the MTC before Sunday.

One missionary (who had 6 different languages in his mission) told me that in his mission they had missionaries on islands. With everything closing down they were still able to find a freight boat or members boat that would take them over to the Philippines mainland. Some got on the boat but by the time they got to the other side they had closed their borders. Upon returning, the other side had just closed also. They were stranded until some of the restrictions were lifted and they could get in.  Other groups of missionaries had nowhere to go as communities were closing and not letting anyone in. This one group lived on the bus for 3 days.
                                  
                                At the MTC we had visits from Elder Schmutz...

                                              Elder Bangerter…….

                                       

 and  Elder Wakolo…...our Area Seventies

We were told that at one point as they worried about where to put the 1,800 missionaries coming to the MTC that was built to house 300, they decided to take a bunch to a wonderful resort area owned by the church. It was used for conferences. The senior missionaries and others got all packed up and ready to go and then got word that they were afraid that would bring too much attention and it would alert the government so they stopped and unpacked.

On this day we experienced breakfast long lines, getting passports, letting a bunch of our elders use our shower and bunk beds to get refreshed and cleaned up, made phone calls and visited with our missionaries. By mid-afternoon, they wanted to move the Senior couples. Sister Snyder and I were moved to a nice apartment that was just vacated by two senior missionaries that went home. It was a beautiful apartment with nice beds and great showers. The other Senior Couple living in the building gave us food and took us down to the store to get what we thought we would need to get by for the next couple of days. The rumor was (this had changed from Thursday afternoon to Saturday and then finally Sunday afternoon), we would go home Sunday afternoon.

We checked into that room on Wednesday and did all the necessary things to be allowed in the building. Thursday afternoon we got the call to be packed and downstairs in 15 minutes. They then moved us to the Marriott Hotel along with many other missionaries. They put missionaries in the Sheridan Hotel as well. We were asked to assist in doing room checks and assigned different rooms to make rounds to. 
                                                 
  Leaving the MTC...

                      Keeping our distance on the bus ride over to the Marriott.

   It must be hard to get into the Marriott! 
See the roadblock and the dog who checks our bus.

We, along with the other Senior missionaries took our list and went to each room to let the missionaries know what was expected of them? They were able to watch TV but using good judgment, not make phone calls, (some of them did and it charged to the room for the church to pay), they were to wear missionary attire if they went anywhere in the hotel, they were not to congregate in the lobby so others couldn’t get through, no groups bigger than 6 to 8 people, everyone in their own room by 9:00 pm, do not leave the building, weigh luggage if necessary because of the weight on this trip would be very important with so many taking the full limit of weight home and meals would be brought to their door and left.

We were told that Saturday night there would probably be a note put on our door of when we were to leave but to be ready by 6:00 am. No note ever came but everyone got a call at 4:30 am telling us to pack and come to the lobby.

At six Sunday morning, the lobby was full of missionaries and they were asked to get in groups of their mission and get in ABC order. We then waited a couple of hours for immigrations to come with the missionary’s passports. With the missionaries all in ABC order, it took very little time passing out passports to the missionaries. We then loaded the bus and went to the airport.

Sister Snyder was on the first of five planes to leave and I was on the last. My plane got a late start because of one of the planes, conveyer belts broke and we had to pick up their extra luggage.

We flew 3 hours to Tokyo and waited on the plane for them to refuel. Then we flew 9 hours to Salt Lake City. This is where everyone would catch their connecting flight. Some of our missionaries, like the ones going to Hawaii, had to then fly back to Hawaii the following day. On our plane ride over no one knew their connecting flight schedule. When we got into Salt Lake and finished with all the customs lines, we then came out the doors and there were two people there directing us to the correct line. In the line, we got our ticket home or a room for the night if it was too late. 

It was too late for me so I had to stay and fly home Monday morning. Sister Snyder was on the last flight home to St. George but went looking for me (they said she had time). We had landed but had to wait for the two planes in front of us to unload. We were to be there by 6:00 pm but didn’t get through the airport line until 8:00 pm. Sister Snyder found me but by then her plane had left (a little early) and we were given a room for the night and our tickets to fly home the next morning.

I often wonder what went on behind the scenes and how little sleep some of those people at church headquarters got. It was told to us that the lady who spent hours lining up the 5 Delta airlines to transport all 1,500 of us to the states literally started crying once she got the okay that they had the planes. The people on the other end kept asking if she was still there but she couldn’t stop crying long enough to talk to them. I often wonder who and how many people were trying to get the 1,500 airline tickets lined up. All this and with a large earthquake in Salt Lake right in the middle of it. With the earthquake, all airlines stop while they check the runway for cracks. Church office buildings close until they are considered safe to go back into. There was so much going on. 

Every mission is fighting its own battle among shutdowns to get a large number of missionaries fed, places to stay and out to the MTC. Let’s not even think of the Manila MTC and what it was experiencing during those days. 

*Interesting fact:

When our mission president came into the mission of July 2018 the mission was full of very disobedient missionaries. Any missionary that was there at that time will tell you that was the truth. President Peterson and Sister Peterson worked very hard to turn the mission around. Some missionaries even went home. 

By Jan and Feb we became the top baptizing mission in the Philippians and the Philippines is the top baptizing continent in the world. (We don't count Africa because it is not a continent.) Every missionary in Laoag knows the work and experienced the change. We are very proud of our President and his wife for being able to bring this about. For Sister Snyder and I, it was one of the greatest rewards in our life to have experienced this with them. We watched some of our very disobedient missionaries go to wonderful hard-working and dedicated missionaries. 

For the last two months, we ranked the top baptizing mission there. We had, at one time 30 to 50 people being baptized in one week. One of the changes we were doing was, right off the bat missionaries would have people commit to going to church. If they didn't the missionaries would then move on to other people who were really interested and sincere about the church. The Filipino people or a very loving and sociable people. Often they just loved having the missionaries come but were not interested in leaving the Catholic church. 

                                   Our friend from the First and Second Ward

* Interesting fact:

In December missions throughout the world took a survey. The missionaries were asked about how they felt about their mission president and the goals the mission was trying to accomplish. Before we got the results of that survey we held a Zone Conference in January. During the morning session of that conference, the President felt it all was not connecting. At lunch, he discussed this with the AP's. They figured out what was not connecting and came back in the afternoon to bring it all together. I remember that day well when the president interjected the AP's lesson and started telling how important it was to get investigates into the Book of Mormon immediately. I thought it was a little strange but they pulled it all together later.

When the survey came out the end of January that connection some how showed up as missing and our President and AP's had just taken care of it at Zone Conference.

The survey showed that the missionaries were all in line with the direction of the President and that they had a lot of respect for him and his wife. There was a great feeling of comradery as well as a commitment to our mission. 

At our last Sacrament Meeting with the President and Sister Peterson praised us Senior Missionaries for being a part of bringing that loving feeling to our mission and our missionaries. It was a glorious day to be part of that mission.  In fact, after the survey they were asking the President what he did so they could help other missions. 

I tell you this because we all have a strong belief that President Peterson can do this once again. He can make a strong mission but this time using only the Filipinos. We are all excited to see the growth and strength that these missionaries will develop. They will truly be strong leaders one day. 

We leave you now as we sing our Mission song one last time...……………

                                        

                                        

                                        

                                         

                                           

                                              

Thank you for sharing the last 20 months with us. It's been an experience that we could never have dreamed would be this rewarding. 

                   Bless you all and don't forget the missionaries!

Love (for the last time),
The Sister Sisters
Rita and Veva