2-27-20

I don't know where to start!! GREAT AND DREADFUL DAYS FOR THE MISSIONARIES!!

Last Thursday (2-19) President Howell called me and asked what the chances were that the reservations would be closing down and they would be blocking off the roads. So no one would be allowed in or out. I told him there was a good chance that, that would happen if the virus were to come into the reservation. He told me that the church was thinking about pulling all the senior missionaries so they would be home if they needed medical attention.

(I guess I should state that the Coronavirus has hit first in China and has spread throughout the world. As of today there are 81,321 confirmed cases in the U S. This is the most in the world. In the world as a whole we have 536,374 (confirmed) in the world with 24,112 deaths. So this is a huge deal. The church is sending all the missionaries home from foreign countries. (at least those where the virus is really bad and they will be reassigned here in america as best as they can after a 14 day isolation. The prophet has told the church to fast and pray on the 29th. The church has taken all of this very seriously!!)

President Howell called back later that day and told us the church was sending all seniors home (at least in our mission as medical attention was a long way away from most of us) I have not heard of other missions yet. Roberta and I cried and cried all day as we have been having so much success in Eagle Butte and Cherry Creek. We have left 2 people with recommends to attend the temple. We were teaching 8 more people the temple lessons. We started out with an attendance of 15 to 20 people each week and the week we left had 60 to 70 people in attendance. We opened up Cherry creek and the week before they closed all churches to meetings we had 25 people in attendance (We were meeting in Gloria Belmonte's home as the church was burned down). (the church closed all churches in the world so that no one could attend and pass the virus to each other. The church also closed all temple, thus we left 2 people with recommends.).

We had many friends and we went around and said goodbye to them. It was a hard day Valerie Swan had made us a beautiful Star quilt. She is about 68 years old and made this beautiful quilt. She also has made us jewelry. She is so wonderful. We cried and cried with her. She called her sisters Pam and Aurelia and was crying so hard they couldn't understand her (they told us when we went by to say goodbye to them. Pam for example was totally inactive and was the primary president. She is now active and doing really well (other than beating up her husband now and again). We have Ray Washburn in Cherry Creek, Gloria Belmonte, Denise Kill Crow (taking the temple lessons) Delinda, Manny and Renee (also taking the temple lessons) and others Roberta help me here!!

We have left so many wonderful people Carla Veaux (need help) Carla's family just had some kids get baptised (her grandkids) and we are thinking they will activate Carla and some of her kids and so many people. I really need to mention The three wonderful elders we had working in Cherry creek. actually we had more than just the 3 as Elder Perks from Rexburg helped us open it up and now Elder Brown has really kept it going (from AZ) And others (Elder Leonard, Elder Anderson). We also had Sisters really doing a great work in Eagle Butte. Sisters Like Brooks, and Howser, and again others (Sister Eliesa, Sister Roberts, Sister Christensen, Sister Sonnenburg, and Sister Van Hoff. )

Needless to say it was very hard coming home. We packed up and left Friday and stayed with Kathy Huntington Friday night and then on the Alamosa on Saturday. We stopped and saw Susan and Robert first, on to Ryan and his family, then to Jared, and on to Jenny's. We had lots of hugs and kisses and it was a wonderful reunion. Later that night Elder Degraw saw the pictures of us with the kids and grandkids and called me and said; "hey what are you doing, you are in quarantine?" I said I guess we missed the memo. So here we are in quarantine and hating it. thlpe virus keeps spreading and things are looking pretty grim. The stock market has been really hurting and they have shut down the country as no one except "essential" workers are supposed to go to work. People all over are out of work with no money coming in. The country has come up with a bill putting 2 trillion dollars into the economy to keep us from going into a depression. It is a scary time for a lot of people. It is a hard time for us as we HATE staying in our home and doing nothing.

I have been working with the church to purchase a building in Cherry Creek. They aren't very excited right now to purchase a building.  They are fearful with us gone, they people will not keep coming!

What are the Morgans wanting to do?? well we hope to return back to our mission asap. Even if we need to  re submit our papers. We feel we need to finish our work! And we hope other senior missionaries will continue our work!!