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About two months ago we moved across town. We are in a new ward. We don’t know any of the neighbors. We finally met the bishop & counselor, and the RS pres stopped by unannounced, and we didn’t hear the bell, but she left cookies and a handwritten card. We’ve been to Church once since moving, but there were (IMO) a LOT of people there, well over 50, and while everyone was masked, there was singing (wearing masks, which was odd). Because of the number of people we were in the overflow on hard metal chairs, and the meeting was at 9AM, which wasn’t the best. Perhaps when it’s slightly later in Jan we’ll go back. We shall see. However, we didn’t speak to a soul or know anyone, and with the masks you can’t even really see what people look like. It feels pointless to me to go right now. Our last ward was a bit better on guidelines, although this one was OK, too. We just didn’t have as many people in attendance, and no singing. My bigger surprise was a call from the missionaries, asking if they could come by to get to know us (fine, maybe, except pandemic) and share a spiritual message (eh, no thanks, it’s literally the worst, super awkward, and a thinly veiled attempt to get referrals which we do not have). They specifically said they wanted all members of the family to sit in, which is basically not going to happen regardless, and I’m not interested in these canned presentations at all. It’s just so artificial.
But my bigger question is, with cases spiking in AZ, why are they going back to in home stuff all of a sudden? I hesitated big time when they asked me this (I only answered because I thought it was my doctor’s office calling). If the weather were warmer I’d have considered letting them come over and go outside in the backyard, but I just don’t really see the point. I don’t have referrals. I don’t need a canned message. My kids have zero interest in this. And most importantly, it’s a pandemic. Why are we sending kids out on missions, having them do totally unnecessary in home visits right now? I don’t know where they’ve been. In my old stake, the missionaries were not allowed in homes, and that was when cases were at a lower number.
My thoughts on missionaries has changed quite a bit over the past few years. I used to avoid the missionaries like the plague, for many of the same reasons (no referrals, no desire for their message, didn’t want to become a project, etc.). Over the past couple of years, we’ve had the missionaries over for dinner on an increasingly frequent basis. They had dinner with us this past Sunday night, and they’ll be eating with us again on Christmas day. I don’t have any referrals for them, and I’ve let them know that I don’t feel comfortable talking to other people about the church when I’m lacking faith in many aspects of it myself. So, they don’t ask for the referrals anymore.
I don’t need a canned message, but I’m okay with them sharing it anyway.
I agree that the church probably shouldn’t even be sending them out right now…but they are.
I feel bad for these kids. They’re stuck on a mission, away from their families, serving in a very different environment than what they envisioned. They grew up hearing all of the mission stories and how great it is to be a missionary. Now they’re stuck out there, confined to their apartments for most of their time, trying to teach people online. I can’t imagine how miserable that has got to be. I would have a hard time staying positive in those circumstances. When we were talking with the missionaries this past week about Christmas coming up, the younger companion said that a year from now, he’ll still have 6 months left of his mission. This big, stocky guy (probably 6’2″, 250 lbs) started to tear up talking about this being his first Christmas away from home. It was a good reminder to me that these guys are just kids. In that moment, it was never more evident to me that the missionaries probably need us a lot more than we need them right now. They have very little face-to-face personal contact with people, and that’s something that a lot of people really need.
Holy Cow wrote:
…It was a good reminder to me that these guys are just kids. In that moment, it was never more evident to me that the missionaries probably need us a lot more than we need them right now. They have very little face-to-face personal contact with people, and that’s something that a lot of people really need.
I agree that they are kids & need contact with people. But, NOT in a pandemic. Here in the midwest, we are setting records everyday. Hospitals are over run. We haven’t talked to our neighbors, children or grandchildren in 9 months. Church is still virtual. We have talked to church members on the phone or through a storm doors for (max) 2 minutes. The stake sends out YouTube videos. I agree that all of us need human contact & currently are not getting it. But, human contact, without proper protection or social distancing can be dangerous. It is not worth the risk.
These are unusual times & requires unusual solutions. IMO the church should send the missionaries home for the holidays. Then call them back if we see that the vaccines are working. If they choose to stay home, be understanding & don’t make them feel guilty about their decision. Do not jeopardize the health of the members, investigators or the missionaries. (This really can work me into a frenzy if you can’t already tell.)
This is somewhat similar to my “how to respond to the missionaries” post. Different missions are different. Here the missionaries are still for the most part locked down and doing everything online with no live meetings. There was a brief time late summer when they were allowed out and about but even then they weren’t allowed inside and all visits/meetings had to be outside. My wife and I are very careful (I’m a little more so than she is) about personal interactions with others, masks or no masks, inside or outside. Since I have no referrals for the missionaries and don’t do their little “programs” (no matter how disguised) there’s little reason for me to interact with them and even if they were allowed to come at this time – even if it were outdoors (not likely in the winter in the northeast) – I’d pass.
I’m of the opinion that the church should have just sent all missionaries home and not sent them out again until this whole thing is over. God forbid we’d do that though.
Minyan Man wrote:
(This really can work me into a frenzy if you can’t already tell.)
I completely understand. Nothing wrong with being careful. Admittedly, I probably don’t take the pandemic as seriously as I should.
It’s interesting to hear about the restrictions in some of your areas. It sounds like restrictions in our mission area are much lighter than in some of your areas.
To put things into perspective, as of today there have been 310,300 US deaths from this virus (in about 9 mos). During all of WWII, 420,000 US lives were lost (in about 3 yrs). We are at 74% in less time.
Quote:
Admittedly, I probably don’t take the pandemic as seriously as I should.
I think that’s true of most Americans. Even those who think they take it seriously, probably don’t take it as seriously as they should. So, let me help.– We are now losing more Americans every day to Covid-19 than to any other single cause of death. In fact, it’s probable that by the end of December, we will be losing more Americans every day to Covid than to the next two causes of death (heart disease and cancer) combined.
– I know a local doctor and was talking to him the other day. All of the hospital beds in our city are occupied and hospitals are using overflow space. This in spite of all non-urgent surgeries being called off.
– A coworker of mine was exposed to Covid in November by someone else who was asymptomatic. He was dead three weeks later.
– Vaccines have started with a trickle. The vaccinated will not be immune for a “few weeks”. And it’s going to be a long time before the majority of Americans have been vaccinated. That means that the death-rate will continue to rise and my guess is that it won’t peak until likely in Feb-Mar-Apr. In other words, the worst days of the pandemic are actually still ahead of us, not behind.
– Finally, take a look at how the daily death-rate in the US is increasing dramatically:
Sep 01…..698 (Average Daily Covid-19 Deaths in the US, 7-day averaged)
Sep 15…..845
Oct 01…..704
Oct 15…..686
Nov 01…..820
Nov 15…1,141
Dec 01…1,523
Dec 15…2,480
They really should not have any missionaries out in the field until the pandemic is over. Even without the pandemic, every flu season all the missionaries would get sick (and at least in my mission, you needed permission from the mission office to stay home, so lots of missionaries went out and got other people sick). And when missionaries are stuck in their apartments, it seems pretty pointless. Any missionary work they can do from their apartments could also be done from their own homes, for much cheaper. Does the church think that sending missionaries out now is needed to keep them active and give them the “spiritual high” of a mission? Missions are hard enough without being stuck inside all day. I often feel like the only one who speaks negatively of serving a mission. I wonder if that’s about to change as we get a bunch of missionaries who just sat inside all day for months. I often felt spending all day knocking on doors was completely pointless. I can only imagine if I didn’t even get to go outside.
I wonder if the church is worried that if they don’t keep sending out missionaries, not serving a mission will become normalized and fewer people will choose to go even after the pandemic.
I also feel like the church lacks imagination with these things. There are plenty of other things they could have them do instead of sitting in the apartments pestering people on Facebook. Maybe help them prepare for their future by having them take BYU Online courses tuition-free or something. You could have the missionaries assigned overseas take college courses for their mission language online. Then when the pandemic clears up, they can go out into the field with a decent foundation in the language, more than what they might normally have from the MTC. They could set up Zoom calls with members overseas to help missionaries study languages, break down cultural barriers, etc. Arrakeen: GOOD suggestions. Too bad the Church doesn’t take suggestions. I was surprised because during the summer, before we moved, the missionaries weren’t allowed to come inside. Our cases are WORSE now, not better (AZ was 4th worst state in the nation last I saw), and suddenly they are allowed to come into our homes? I was taken aback by the request because I thought caution reined supreme. I do really really feel for these kids, particularly around Christmas. I can’t imagine a worse time to be on a mission.
Last week my own Mission President died (of old age, not Covid–I’m pretty sure). His funeral is tomorrow, and there was a message from one of my fellow former missionaries to those of us who might attend the funeral saying that we & our families should all sit together up front and sign a song as a group, then stay afterward for a luncheon. I kind of think all three of these things are sort of reckless activities, or at least don’t seem to be focused on what precautions are being taken. Funerals in general are super-spreader events with all the crying, singing, and hugging. I would love to honor his memory, but that message didn’t leave me feeling comfortable with how seriously people are taking precautions. I’m not living my life in white-knuckled terror. I go to restaurants, for instance, but if they aren’t wearing masks or don’t have social distancing with the tables, I take my food to go. We’re all fatigued over this pandemic, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw caution to the wind with a vaccine a few months away.
Maybe leaders didn’t think the pandemic would last as long as it has (and will) or that the pandemic would have as large of an impact as it has (and will). Like printing newspapers, it might be easier to print a retraction tomorrow morning than to halt the press, make the correction, and start things back up from the beginning.
In the context of missionary work, if they shuttered the program they’d either have to stop renting apartments or let the apartments lie dormant until the program got back into full swing. If they stop renting the apartments then they’d have to put all the furniture, meager as it is, somewhere for the duration of the shutdown. Then there’d be a big effort to find apartments and move furniture back after the program starts back. If they let the apartments lie dormant while the program was halted, there’d be no steady $500 per month per missionary coming in to pay for it all.
Duration also factors into this. If leaders thought this would be a 4-6 month thing then they might decide that the effort to shut down and restart wasn’t worth it, they’d weather the storm. If leaders thought this would be a 12+ month thing they might have decided to shut down but now we’re in sunk cost territory with the pandemic perpetually ending four months out.
Then there are the kids. IMO the pandemic has taken the most from kids, the mission being one more thing. Lots of kids look forward to serving a mission and it would be hard on them if their window of opportunity closes because the missionary program is shut down for a year or more. I’m sure leaders are also of the attitude that the church will lose a greater percentage of youth to attrition if they’re not out there serving missions.
hawkgrrrl wrote:
But my bigger question is, with cases spiking in AZ, why are they going back to in home stuff all of a sudden?
Perhaps this is the subject of another thread, but I think the answer is because people have lost their minds. As a church we did well in the beginning phases of the pandemic, now we’re in the process of burning all that effort to the ground.
We got the green light from the AA to hold SM again and we dutifully went back to weekly in-person meetings. This occurred a few weeks before it was clear that we were at the start of the second wave (or wave on top of a wave). We were informed that the leaders would be keeping a close eye on things and that they’d potentially shut things back down if things got out of hand again. We are now
well pastthings being out of hand and we’re still doing weekly in-person sacrament meetings. Contrary to the promise, they’re opening more and more things back up (in-person youth activities, missionary visits, etc.) just as the virus has gotten completely out of control and hospitals are filling up. 200 active cases? Completely shut down.
100,000 active cases? What can we open back up this week?
Our area even defied in-person restrictions put in place by the governor. As I understand it, religions may have an assumed exemption from the indoor gathering limits (because they’ll sue in court) but it’s a bad look when you only want to flex “religious freedom” to undermine efforts to keep a pandemic under control.
To be clear, it’s not just church members. I think people in general are fatigued by pandemic sacrifices. It’s been so long that many have surrendered and adopted a screw it, I’m going to do what I want attitude, which is one of the reasons the reason the virus is exploding.
I will say that I won’t be going back to in-person meetings any time soon. I don’t trust the people in church.
This experience got me thinking back to my own missionary Christmas which was actually one of the best Christmases I ever had (sounds sad, but it was really an awesome Christmas with 8 of us who were great friends all celebrating together). https://wheatandtares.org/2020/12/23/a-missionary-christmas/ By contrast, the first Christmas after my mission, I flew home from college, and my parents had actually forgotten to get me anything. It was fine because as a return missionary I didn’t care that much. I was still on the “mission martyrdom” train in which I don’t have any needs or wants. My mom kept opening presents she bought herself and wrapped, and then my sister asked why I didn’t have anything. My mom went back into the home office, got some computer paper that was still in the Kmart bag with the receipt and said she forgot to wrap it. Right.
You might be surprised that many of this year’s recommendations were made in the recent past. Lockdowns, censorship of divergent opinions, keeping international travel going (which is crazy in a pandemic). You don’t need a crystal ball (or urim and thummim or a rock in a hat) if you can find this information. You can’t actually share this link around social media due to censorship, but far from being off some conspiracy website, this is the real deal.
Quote:The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum [aka Davos, where many international policies are born behind closed doors] and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.
The Open Society Foundation is also listed on the site. Their suggestions are for an airborne pandemic like Covid and their recommendations seem to have been taken on board. It is worth noting that some of these (such as keeping international travel going) are inappropriate for disease control, or are not even relevant to it.
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