The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

SALT LAKE CITY — An e mail from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland led to what Korea Seoul Mission President Brad Taylor calls “that dreadful day.”

It was alleged to be a beautiful Friday. The earlier week, President Taylor’s 131 quarantined missionaries had been thrilled to be joined in a missionwide video convention name by Elder Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Holland and the missionaries loved it a lot he steered that he be part of the complete mission by video convention once more the following week for scripture research. President Taylor and his spouse, Ann, had been getting ready for Elder Holland’s name on March 6 when his e mail stopped them chilly.

You’re about to get some robust information, Elder Holland wrote. Let me know if you happen to nonetheless need to do the scripture research.

Inside 5 minutes, the church’s Missionary Division knowledgeable the Taylors they wanted to evacuate all of their non-Korean missionaries. The Taylors stated they thought-about their choices, then despatched Elder Holland a reply e mail: We’d nonetheless like to have the missionaries research the scriptures with you.

The missionary companionships logged into the video convention 30 minutes earlier than Elder Holland was to hitch, and the Taylors delivered the gorgeous information: 101 of the 131 missionaries wanted to pack the whole lot, clear out and briefly shut 50 residences and rush to the mission workplace in Seoul to catch flights to their residence nations. There, they had been to be quarantined for 2 weeks after which reassigned to home missions.

COVID-19 had hit China and unfold. The missionaries already had been quarantined of their residences for greater than two weeks. The coronavirus had reached 89 nations and killed practically three,500 individuals (three,zero45 in China), in accordance with the World Well being Group’s daily COVID-19 report.

“It’s exhausting sufficient to say goodbye to 6 missionaries after they go residence on schedule on the finish of their missions,” President Brad Taylor stated. “To say goodbye to 101 missionaries when the information got here out of the blue is among the most tough issues we’ve ever executed.”

Whereas the missionaries tried to course of the gorgeous change, Elder Holland joined the decision. He shared a message that might resonate with tens of hundreds of different missionaries the church would briefly ship residence on industrial flights and chartered jets over a two-month interval, and with tens of millions of church members who by the top of March could be unable to attend church providers or the temple collectively.

Adversity, Elder Holland stated, usually precedes monumental life-changing occasions.

“Keep in mind that God can take each mortal expertise we’ve and switch it to our good. He’s all the time guiding the affairs of the church and his trustworthy kids. He’ll flip all of this to the benefit of your work,” he added. “Miracles and nice good will come of this for the Korea Seoul Mission. Cheerfully do all that you are able to do, after which look ahead to the miracle to unfold.”

By interviews, reporting over practically 4 months and press accounts, the Deseret Information has compiled an image of the church’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a story of lengthy days and nights crammed with rolling decision-making that merged info from world and native well being specialists with info from church leaders skilled in each non secular ministering and worldwide disaster administration. These selections have formed the non secular facet of the pandemic for tens of millions of Latter-day Saints world wide.

“They’ve mixed world understanding with wealthy expertise, and medical information with native understanding, to attempt to provide you with the most effective steadiness on this scenario,” stated Rick Turley, the previous assistant church historian.

These rules will information the church’s leaders as they reopen church actions, Turley stated.

“I feel they know that that the circumstances are going to range in accordance with the exact contours of the world during which selections are being made,” he stated, “and that they will’t make a solo or single pronouncement at church headquarters that’s going to use in all instances globally.”

World missionary airlift

The World Well being Group declared a pandemic on March 11.

The subsequent day, March 12, the First Presidency suspended all church meetings worldwide “out of an abundance of warning and with deep concern for world well being … ,” however the church’s response in Asia was already nicely underway with humanitarian assist and safety for the Latter-day Saints.

Different church buildings world wide had been the focal point of superspreader events and that knowledgeable the actions of many countries. By March 25, the day the First Presidency introduced the non permanent closure of all 168 of the church’s sacred temples world wide, a coronavirus cluster round a Korean megachurch that met in late February had accounted for five,zero80 confirmed instances of COVID-19. That represented greater than half of South Korea’s complete on the time, in accordance with The Washington Put up.

By the top of the day that started with Elder Holland’s message, all the 101 evacuees from the Seoul Mission had arrived on the mission residence from throughout the complete width of the Korean peninsula. By the next day, March 7, practically all had been on flights overseas, “a logistical miracle, in contrast to any I’ve ever seen earlier than,” President Taylor stated.

Church leaders and employees would orchestrate a world airlift to return practically half of the church’s 67,00zero missionaries to their residence nations. Over two months, all international missionaries went residence from 377 of the church’s 399 world missions.

Dramatic tales grew to become widespread.

Eight missionaries serving in Macau barely made it throughout a bridge earlier than Hong Kong closed that border. Dozens of missionaries within the Philippines spent a night sleeping on buses in a area after they weren’t allowed to cross a border checkpoint; the following day, they managed to succeed in the airport and fly residence with a complete of 1,600 missionaries on 5 jets chartered by the church. When a industrial flight out of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati wanted to chop weight to make room for extra Fijians to return residence earlier than Fiji’s borders closed, 68 missionaries agreed to go away their baggage behind, in accordance with a published account within the Fiji Occasions.

Stopping the unfold

COVID-19 halted each common gathering follow of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and dramatically altered not solely its missions however its missionary practices. The religion’s most sacred rites, from the weekly sacrament service to temple worship, shut down in dizzying succession.

The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles made it clear, because the First Presidency stated in a letter, that the church’s leaders and members wished “to be good world residents and do what we will to regulate this contagious sickness.” President Russell M. Nelson, the eminent retired coronary heart surgeon main the church, famous that “Your safety and well-being will always be our utmost concern.”

The stakes had been clear as COVID-19 brought about the deaths of tens of hundreds, together with Latter-day Saints like Carlo Alberto Dallari, 77, the primary bishop set aside in trendy Italy, and Elder Dee Pace, 68, a senior missionary serving in Michigan. No funeral was held for Dallari due to Italian authorities restrictions.

Church leaders, taking cues from world and native well being officers and with prayerful inspiration, they stated, labored to remain a step forward of the coronavirus’ unfold. Wuhan, China, initially appeared distant for many church members. The church’s first public statements concerning the coronavirus got here on Jan. 29, when it introduced that President Nelson had helped facilitate a donation of respirator masks and different private protecting gear to medical employees in a Shanghai kids’s hospital.

That very same week, church leaders shut down the primary Latter-day Saint conferences in Hong Kong due to COVID-19, primarily based on steerage from authorities and well being specialists. Hong Kong Saints now haven’t gathered for sacrament assembly for 4 full months, since Jan. 26, in accordance with Annie Wong, the Asia Space director of public affairs.

The emergency measures highlighted the church’s efficient administrative construction. The worldwide church is split into 21 areas, every with an space presidency overseen by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and a member of the Presidency of the Seventy.

As January turned to February, Hong Kong protesters known as for the closure of its borders with China. Church leaders in Salt Lake Metropolis had been consulting with the Asia Space presidency, which was counseling with Hong Kong Mission President Dennis Phillips. On the night time of Feb. three, the federal government shut down all of the ferries to Macau, an autonomous area the place Phillips had eight missionaries, together with Elder Ka Po Kwok, 19, of Hong Kong. The subsequent morning, the choice was made, Kwok recalled: Take away the missionaries from Macau the one manner doable, by bus over a water bridge.

By the morning of Feb. 5 in Hong Kong (Feb. four in Utah), after the primary COVID-19 dying there and 490 deaths in neighboring China, church leaders introduced that they had determined to temporarily close the Hong Kong Mission. President Phillips texted all 125 of the missionaries, telling them they wanted to pack, clear their residences and head to the mission workplace and could be returning residence. Kwok stated his mission president adopted up with a second textual content that contained a predetermined code phrase so the missionaries would know the order to go away was no drill: “Jell-O Nation.” Missionaries returned to the mission residence and flights had been organized.

The 12 Hong Kong natives serving within the mission had been launched and despatched residence, whereas 113 others returned to their residence nations. President Phillips has spent two months within the Missionary Coaching Middle in Provocation serving to help on-line missionary coaching and searching ahead to the day when he can lead his missionaries again to Hong Kong.

Prophetic message of optimism

The first temple to close due to the pandemic was the Taipei Taiwan Temple in mid-February. Temples in Japan, Italy, Seattle and New York City adopted, marking areas hardest-hit by the virus.

As swiftly because the virus unfold, the church labored to remain forward of the risk, closing down conferences, temples, in-person missionary work and adjusting journey. On Feb. 27, leaders announced that common authorities and different church members shouldn’t journey to Utah for common convention, and that the management classes of convention had been postponed till October.

The rapid-fire selections introduced over two days in March had been particularly gorgeous.

The morning of March 11, the identical day the outbreak was declared a pandemic, church leaders introduced that the April common convention celebrating the 200th anniversary of the First Imaginative and prescient of Joseph Smith could be digital-only and that each one missionary coaching could be executed on-line. It might be later that night time that Utah Jazz star heart Rudy Gobert would be diagnosed with COVID-19, marking the day the pandemic grew to become actual for Individuals and altered each day life in America that continues.

The subsequent day, the church’s faculties and universities announced they’d shut briefly, then reopen as digital-only establishments for the remainder of the semester. These closures have continued into the spring and can by way of summer time. No determination has been made whether or not college students will return to campuses within the fall. BYU reported this week that that call will are available July.

Additionally on March 12, the First Presidency suspended all church conferences indefinitely.

“I went over to church this morning, and it was type of unhappy as a result of nobody was in it,” Eaglecrest third Ward Bishop Ryan Kirby informed his spouse and 5 kids after they sat down collectively the next Sunday.

The Kirby household, and lots of of hundreds of Latter-day Saint households and people like them, started to worship at residence, utilizing the church’s new home-centered “Come, Comply with Me” curriculum and buoyed partially by a video message of optimism from President Nelson.

“These distinctive challenges will go in time. I stay optimistic for the longer term,” he said in the video, launched March 14. By this time, the First Presidency, Twelve and different common authorities and common officers already had suspended all of their very own ministerial journey.

Some restricted temple worship continued in areas the place it was secure to take action. On March 16, the First Presidency temporarily suspended proxy work on the 155 temples that remained open for restricted temple work. By March 23, only 65 temples remained open, and just for residing ordinances restricted to 10 or fewer individuals.

The First Presidency closed all 168 temples completely on March 25. “We look ahead to the day when the temples will reopen,” the First Presidency letter stated. By that day the World Well being Group had confirmed 413,467 COVID-19 instances and 18,433 deaths in 183 nations.

Maybe the strongest collective note of hope got here with common convention in early April. Thousands and thousands watched and listened through broadcast or livestream as President Nelson known as for a world quick for reduction from the pandemic on Good Friday, announced new temples and a new logo featuring the Christus statue. He additionally learn a new proclamation on the restoration of Christ’s church and led the church in a worldwide Hosanna Shout.

“Throughout occasions of deep misery, as when sickness reaches pandemic proportions, probably the most pure factor for us to do is to name upon our Heavenly Father and his Son — the grasp healer — to indicate forth their marvelous energy to bless the individuals of the Earth,” President Nelson stated.

In the meantime, the church continued to interact in worldwide pandemic-related reduction assist, which has grown to 481 initiatives in 115 nations as of Saturday, church spokesman Doug Andersen informed the Deseret Information. These initiatives embody offering meals, hygiene merchandise, private protecting gear, medical gear, money and different commodities.

Since early March, the church has weekly delivered 15 truckloads of meals and different commodities — sufficient to feed 1,400 individuals for every week — from bishops’ storehouses to meals banks in each nook of the USA. In Utah, the Reduction Society has helped recruit tens of hundreds of volunteers to sew 5 million masks for well being care employees in a joint undertaking with Intermountain Healthcare and College of Utah Well being.

A marriage curler coaster

The temple closures remained a painful sacrifice and adjustment for a lot of. For instance, Carlos Muñoz, 34, and Melissa Whitehead Muñoz, 30, had been rocked. That they had been scheduled to be sealed in Might in Provo, however in mid-April, a temple scheduler informed them to count on the temples to be closed by way of Might and into the summer time.

They fervently joined the worldwide fasting and prayer on March 29 for reduction from the pandemic known as for by President Nelson, then did so once more on Good Friday, April 10, when Latter-day Saints joined tens of tens of millions of Catholics and others in one other quick.

Lastly, the couple stated they felt impressed to marry civilly on Might 1 of their yard with 20 visitors and a livestream for household and associates who couldn’t attend.

“Inside the church, we develop up eager about getting married within the temple. To have that modified for us was a tough psychological transition,” stated Whitehead Muñoz, a graphic designer who grew up in Cedar Hills.

The transitions continued six days later. That’s when church leaders issued a letter asserting that 17 temples would in truth reopen on Might 11 for marriage ceremony sealings solely.

Whitehead Muñoz was instantly grateful that church leaders final yr eradicated a requirement that married civilly needed to wait a yr to be sealed within the temple. She believed that coverage change, the “Come, Comply with Me” curriculum and a number of other different changes in church worship and insurance policies had been impressed and had been serving to her and different church members through the pandemic.

With that yearlong wait lifted, and the Provo Metropolis Middle Temple obtainable for sealings, Whitehead Muñoz was the primary to name for a brand new appointment. She was in a position to safe the couple’s authentic marriage ceremony date, Might 16.

“It feels prefer it’s been a curler coaster,” stated Carlos Muñoz, an occasion supervisor and performer from Houston. “You set your thoughts on one factor, then you definitely get some information and also you put together your thoughts for that, and then you definitely get extra information. It was robust to regulate repeatedly.”

The pair are glad however nonetheless questioning whether or not to carry a reception sooner or later tied to neither a marriage nor a sealing.

“God has given us a constant peace by way of all of it, regardless of the turmoil,” Whitehead Muñoz stated.

Missionary returns to mission work

Elder Kim Dongmin, a younger missionary from Pusan, South Korea, examined optimistic for COVID-19 whereas serving within the New York New York Mission. After 5 weeks recovering at residence, he returned to the mission area on Wednesday, when he was obtained by the Taylors within the Korea Seoul Mission.

They had been joyous. Of the 131 missionaries that they had the day the evacuation was introduced, 32 have been launched and 47 now serve in 40 different missions all around the world.

“I can’t specific how exhausting it was to allow them to go,” President Taylor stated. The Taylors stay in contact with all of them, and pray together with them that these nonetheless serving will be capable of return to the Korea Seoul Mission.

In the meantime, President Taylor stated, miracles occurred after Elder Holland informed the missionaries to “embrace this problem with all of the gusto and all the passion that you just embraced your mission name.”

First, the 30 remaining native Korean missionaries efficiently transitioned to on-line work. One video they made has 1.four million views on YouTube.

Some courses they train on Fb Reside draw as many as 1,500 individuals in a reserved tradition the place, Taylor says, a missionary won’t discuss to 1,500 individuals in a complete two-year task.

Second, the native Korean missionaries have blossomed.

“All these missionaries who had been extra shy or quiet have actually risen up and turn into robust contributors, shared concepts, turn into leaders,” Ann Taylor stated.

Each see the adjustments as extensions of how Elder Holland stated God works by way of adversity, even because the church begins to reopen temples on a restricted foundation and has launched a pathway to returning to church gatherings after the coronavirus has killed 335,00zero individuals.

Latter-day Saint congregations are actually exploring when and how you can return to providers. The First Presidency final week introduced a phased approach to reopening formal Sunday gatherings primarily based on native restrictions in every space.

“I feel individuals are lacking it,” stated Turley. “They’re lacking the chance to share emotions with others who share their similar non secular devotion. They need to stay secure within the midst of a horrible time, and but on the similar time they need the type of non secular nourishment, non secular enrichment that comes with gathering.”

“Most of the miracles we see within the work of the Lord come out of stressful or difficult situations,” Elder Holland informed the Deseret Information in an e mail final week. “Jesus’ healings and restorative blessings got here to individuals who had been maimed, troubled, disenfranchised or poor — to call just some classes. So, too, in trendy occasions. Joseph Smith was troubled by the state of his personal soul and the rivalry that existed within the native non secular neighborhood. ‘For how you can act I didn’t know,’ he stated, ‘and except I may get extra knowledge than I then had, I’d by no means know.’”

Elder Holland continued: “Bother in Kirtland, violence in Missouri, martyrdom in Nauvoo. On to handcarts, seagulls and crickets, Johnston’s military and oppressive measures by the federal authorities. The checklist goes on and on from the Previous Testomony period to the New to the Restored … and people occasions don’t even put us into the 20th century!

“Blistered ft, non secular anguish, forsaken earthly items, the problem of an untamed wilderness. The challenges to the work have all the time existed. In these moments we’re often known as on to ‘Stand nonetheless and know that [he] is God.’ No unhallowed hand nor every other problem can cease the work. He can do his personal work and can. If we be part of him in it because the missionaries absolutely do, each problem will probably be turned to their good.”

Observe: Sister Ann Taylor and President Brad Taylor are the sister and brother-in-law of Deseret Information editor Doug Wilks.