Tales of Trinidad: A Lot Changes in 24 Hours

Well, yesterday we had 86 young full time missionaries here in the Trinidad Port of Spain mission and by tomorrow there will be 4. They have or will all fly back to their homes. Those who had only a few months remaining of their mission time will be honorably released and others will be reassigned in their home countries after being quarantined for 14 days and perhaps when everything gets back to "normal" may get to return here to finished out their mission service.

When President Baird made the announcement at our morning meeting, our sweet missionaries broke into tears, we all did. It is a disappointment to not be able to finish how you would like or how you planned. We all know, it always will be alright and everything we go through gives us extremely valuable experiences even and probably especially when it is difficult.
We are so grateful we got to rub shoulders with these mighty people. They are truly inspiring and remarkable! We hope we will get to see them again one day.

So, now there is President and Sister Baird, Elder and Sister Lehman and Dave and I left remaining in Curacao. We have two lone native Guyana missionaries in Guyana, and a lone companionship in Suriname because they are from a country that they can't return to just yet, and we have another senior couple, the Hayes, in Trinidad hoping to get out soon. We have been asked to leave...or given the "go ahead" to leave but we are hoping we can stay until our release date of April 30th for a couple reasons.

Y'all know I have this breathing thing going on and there have not been many cases of the virus showing up here in Curacao, 3 to be exact. This part of the Caribbean just has not had a bad time of it. Aruba has 8, Bonnaire 0, Guyana 7, Suriname 5 and then Trinidad which most of the flights go through have 50 and Utah has 181. So, I'm thinking I'm better off here until things settle down. The other thing is we would really like to stay and support the Bairds in getting things taken care of. There are lots of office things we can do and we can clean up the apartments of the missionaries here that only had 4 hours to get everything packed and to the airport and then take care of the other country's apartments as far as seeing if they need to be terminated or whatever. So, we will talk to who makes that final decision tomorrow, which is mission medical, and see if we are good to stay.

I was reading in Jacob this week and read the words: "our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream" and that's the way I've been feeling about being here, as I've pondered on our time as missionaries and all the months that have passed away...it really does seem like a dream, especially now with everyone leaving and with us being so close to going home

The first of the week was sort of normal. We had two darling sister missionaries transferred here from Suriname on Monday and we took them to get their 3 week supply of food. We were able to get bikes repaired for them to use. We were supposed to have four elders come in to Curacao on their way home for a "going away" celebration but they had to go straight home because of the virus so we only had one departing missionary leave from Curacao. The tradition is for all the newly arriving missionaries to hike Mount Christoffel with President Baird and have a devotional and then when they depart to hike Mount Christoffel again with President Baird and have another devotional to see how they've grown. Well, we didn't get any new arriving missionaries and we only had the one here leaving, so, Thursday, Dave and the Lehmans with the departing and the other missionaries serving here, hiked up Mount Christoffel. I didn't go because ya know that breathing thing which gets worse when I go up steep inclines which is what this hike is mostly. I'm glad Dave got to go because at least I see pictures. Friday we had the going away celebration with Elder Weiss which was really nice. Saturday we had a zoom meeting with the mission and just talked about how to do missionary work with social distancing, then Sunday we wake up to everyone needs to leave. A lot changes in 24 hours!
I'm not sure how many more blogs posts I will have so I want to close by recording the Truths, with a capital T that I know.

I know, especially with all that is going on, that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us dearly and He has orchestrated all of these experiences to get our attention and encourage us to look to Him, trust Him and have faith in Him and His plan. It's a great opportunity for missionaries and everyone to share a message of peace to a very fearful people.
I know Jesus Christ is the very Son of God. He chose to live a perfect life so He could be sacrificed for all sin and overcome death. What would we not do for Him because of His great love for us!
I know that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus, they spoke to him and the Heavens were opened and the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in it's fullness.
I know the Book of Mormon is a record written by prophets of God and brought forth in our day to give us all the Truths, powers, and ordinances we need to receive all that the Father wants to give us.
I know that Russell M Nelson is the Prophet of God on the earth today and he speaks with God and invites us to Hear Him so we know how to live our lives in order to be safe, happy, peaceful, and return to our Heavenly Father and live eternally with our loved ones.
These Truths I know! I am beyond grateful that I do know them.