"President's wondering if they'll have to ship us out to Alcatraz for safeties sake"

Quote of the week explanation

 

The world is burning. Viruses raging across the planet, global economies in dire straits, and now... Violent mobs in every city. In this mission alone, there was quite a bit of activity.

 

From what I understand, right now in the bay area Oakland is the Belly of the Beast, but there is still quite a bit happening in other climes as well. Here in San Francisco there was a mob of people apparently breaking into shops in Union Square, and last night there were what seemed like dozens of police cars speeding past our apartment in the same direction (I lost count at 13). Talking to people around the mission, there was a gun shop looting in Hayward and an explosion in a store parking lot in Union City. Combine all that with the more peaceful displays that have been going on in any city worth mentioning, it would seem as if the world has been tossed into a state of complete and unrestrained chaos. 

 

I've been told many times that in serving a mission you experience many things which will never be forgotten. I don't know what I was expecting the first time I heard that, but it certainly wasn't this. The Cantonese Elders (reassigned from Hong Kong) went to a mission full of civil unrest and riots and then got put into lockdown because of coronavirus. They got reassigned here so that they wouldn't be in that situation anymore, and guess what happened? First a shelter in place which has now dragged on for months, and now more rioting in the streets. Wars and rumors of wars indeed...

 

In terms of the missionary work, things are moving along just as well as ever. We've been having some success in our phone call finding, particularly among the Chinese branch. We've found two new people through those means, and have high hope for the future.

 

I'm looking out the window right now and just saw a crazy looking guy kicking a building, so that's nice.

 

We were also able to keep up a pretty good schedule in terms of teaching lessons and such. Keeping pretty busy even with everything. We've got transfers in a week and a half, and with 30-40 reassigned missionaries coming in its fairly likely that they'll shake some things up with our area, so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, though, we'll hope that the mob wars raging outside at least have the decency to keep it down and let us get some sleep. Those police cars were loud.

 

Anyway, I'll let you get back to the newfound chaos of your lives.

 

Bye...

 

P.S. Now half the stores have boarded up windows and heavy security at the doors (the ones that aren't boarded up along with the windows, at least).

 

P.P.S. Now we have to check in with each companionship in the zone each day to make sure that they are safe and accounted for.

 

P.P.P.S. What's more, the shelter in place for the bay area has been extended indefinitely, so that doesn't do much to distract from the atmosphere of tension hanging over the city.