Quarantine

(Hermana Ellsworth)

I am sorry for the lack of emails these past couple of weeks but I decided that I would go through and write down what happened.

March 12th Church was canceled. That was my second day in Ponce, Puerto Rico and I was so excited to meet the members but the canceled church seemed like a downer.

March 13th we were told that some of the ports in Puerto Rico were closing in order to prevent COVID-19 from coming to the island. This was my third day in Ponce and the third day of the transfer. In Puerto Rico if anything out of the normal happens everyone flocks to the stores to stock up on food and so we got permission from our President to go to Sam's Club and stock up on 2 weeks of food so off we went and you guessed it, they were out of Toilet Paper. BUT we did get a good amount of delicious food in case we needed to go on a lock down.

March 14th is when the restrictions due to COVID-19 started. We were told not to knock on doors and to only leave the house if there were confirmed appointments. It seemed reasonable and they said that we could still have baptisms and what not.

March 15th We had a wonderful worship meeting with the Hermanas. We went over to the church and had 2 hours of wonderful studies. Come Follow me was wonderful. We had President Hinckley and Elder Oaks give some grand talks about women and the priesthood. And then we went home and the member of the bishopric came by and gave us the sacrament. I really did love the way we did church. We even made our own handouts.

March 16th is when Quarantine really started. We were told not to leave our houses and to prepare for at least 21 days inside. There was a curfew in Puerto Rico where if you were caught outside after 7:00PM it was a jail fine. We were allowed to still go outside to get emergency items at the Walgreens next door.

To keep ourselves sane we decided during our free hour of the day we would reenact a book of Mormon pictures every day.

March 17th We were told to clean EVERYTHING we would have competitions on who could have the cleanest apartment and everything was deep cleaned. We were also kept very busy calling members and setting up facetime meetings and looking for old interested people. And also reenacting more Book of Mormon pictures. Our next one was Nefi.

March 18th Also a lot of deep cleaning and we got a wonderful reference from Hermana Pineda and we were able to start teaching Ana. Ana started reading the Book of Mormon as the quarantine started. She was looking for comfort and opened to Amla 32 and started reading about Faith. She really felt like God was reaching out to her in those moments. Ana was incredible to teach and I looked forward to it everyday.

Also being inside we started to slowly lose our tan lines and as a ginger I don't really tan all that much as is but here are some Puerto Rican Sister missionary shoe tan lines and our Book of Mormon reenactment picture for this day.

March 19th We got a call from President Smart that Said Hermana Doxey was to return home early. She is the sister in the blue skirt in the picture above. 10 minutes later after crying we got a call from Hermana Smart that said that Elder Renlund called the area 70 and said that no Puerto Rico San Juan missionary was to be sent home. IT WAS THE NEWS WE WANTED!! We finally felt safe knowing that we were going to continue our missions. Sadly though, we got another call from President that night and we were informed that Hermana Doxey would actually be going home because of the increased restrictions of travel laws. We packed her all up and sad goodbye through many tears.

Our Book of Mormon picture that day did not include our beloved Hermana Doxey.

March 20th A lot of the same things happened. We studied, we worked the best we could and we made some bomb Book of Mormon reenactments. Hermana Garcia really makes a fabulous captain Moroni.   We also increased our yoga skills for our morning exercises and gave Hermana Schearrer cornrows in her hair.

March 21st Hermana Schearrer and I completed 14 months on the mission and Ana the lady that we were teaching over facetime was doing really well

Now, March 22nd to March 28th was just a really weird time. We got a call that we were to be evacuated and to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. So we lived out of our suitcases for this whole week as we waited for our flight plans to go through. We had canceled flight after canceled flight. We got missionaries to Atlanta and then more canceled flights. Apparently during a world crisis it's hard to get flights. After some painful waiting we were finally able to get a flight for some of the missionaries and I just happened to be on it. Hermana Schearrer and I had to say goodbye to Hermana Garcia as she waited for Honduras to open up their borders for her to get home. It was really hard to leave Puerto Rico and to say goodbye to that island that will forever have my heart.  

When we got to Atlanta we found out that our flight to Salt Lake city got canceled and we were to overnight in Atlanta. When we got to the Hotel we needed an "adult signature" for the card incase it didn't go through. We didn't really know what to do but then a member of the Church walked into the hotel saw 20 missionaries in need and just signed for our hotel rooms for us. A very much needed tender mercy. We got up the next morning at 4 am and headed off to Salt Lake city.

APRIL 1ST I was called by my stake president and was released as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wish it was all a April Fools Joke but sadly my time as a missionary came to an end. It was the best 14.5 months of my life and I will always look back on it with fondness no matter how weird it ended due to Corona. I really do love being a missionary and I would encourage all youth who are able to go and serve. I saw so many miracles and so many blessings. I love Puerto Rico and I love the people there. I love my mission President and His wife and I know the Lord wanted me to be in Puerto Rico.

Hermana Madison Ellsworth :)