American Parents -
Answers to common questions that I am receiving -
· There is no plan for your missionary to return to Brazil. Plan on them finishing their missions in the USA.
· We have no clue how, when or where you will receive their new mission assignment if they will return to the field.
· Your stake president needs to follow the missionary release guidelines they have been given.
· They will quarantine at home unless you receive special instructions, which will be extremely rare.
· If they are quarantining at home and returning to finish their missions, they won't be released and will have to continue following missionary rules while quarantining.
· The plan is for all Americans to return home THIS WEEK. In fact, the Sao Paulo missions are sending them TODAY. Travel to a major airport from Recife is a little tricky right now but I know they are reserving flights as fast as they can right now.
· I have received emails from two families regarding the need for their missionary to quarantine somewhere besides their home because of health situations at home. If you also have that situation, you need to tell me IMMEDIATELY!!!!!
· I have no idea when or how those who were scheduled to end their missions on March 31 will now leave. I will tell you as soon as I know but you might know before I do from Church Travel.
I do not know how this will all play out. We have about 225 missionaries in quarantine. We will lose well over half of our missionaries. We are receiving displaced Sao Paulo MTC missionaries with a three hour notice. In two weeks, we will also start receiving Brazilian missionaries serving in other countries who will return to Brazil, go through a mandatory quarantine and then be reassigned to Brazilian missions.
It will break our hearts to tell our missionaries goodbye. We love them dearly. They will need lots of hugs when they get home. This is a lot to process and it happened quickly.
We will communicate the best that we can!
Sister Houseman
