We were fortunate this past week to have a Pacific Area meeting via zoom With all the Mission Presidents and their wives. It was presided over by Elder Gary Stevenson and Elder Brent Nielsen of the Presidency of the Seventy. We learned that of the 55 original mission presidents that had to wait to go to their assignments, only 16 remain, two of which are in the Pacific Area. We are one of those two and the other is for Fiji.
As far as visas are concerned, more categories have opened up but not yet the one needed. Progress is being made but slowly. The church is working with the Utah Senators’ offices to see if they can get us an appointment with the French Consulate to help speed things along. Your prayers are being heard. We feel the time is coming soon for us.
As far as Covid is concerned, Tahiti had their first two deaths earlier this month. It was a married couple in their 80’s. They each had other underlying health issues. The average age of those getting the virus in the islands is in the mid 30’s. They have had over 1300 total cases but most are mild with only 224 still active. Other than a big spike up which lasted for a few short days, the active cases have been trending down since September 1st. If you want to follow these cases on your own, you can go to « epidemic-stats.com ». Once there, go down near the bottom and find French Polynesia and click on its flag. It will show you a graph of total infected and total recovered, then below that will show a graph of the trend of those still currently infected.
Other interesting information from our meeting this week. Over 31,000 missionaries were moved in 40 days this spring. Before Covid, there were over 68,000 missionaries. This dropped to 43,000 and is now back up to 52,000. US missions are at 124% of capacity and those outside the US at 52%. The number of US Missions may temporarily expand from 200 to 260 by the end of the year until missionaries can go back to their original assignments.
Missionary work is still progressing well during the pandemic. Per missionary, the number of baptisms has not dropped, but with fewer missionaries overall, the total number has dropped. The baptisms in some missions have dropped significantly if the missionaries have been waiting for the pandemic to end. The missions who have continued to focus on their purpose, have used technology and other ways to continue to preach the gospel and done very well. In fact, the Pacific Area overall is only down 4% of previous baptism rate with significantly fewer missionaries. In other words, the baptism rate per missionary has actually gone up!
Hearing this news only reinforces our belief that this devine reset has only begun and that the work of the Lord is going to accelerate going forward. Mobile phones are continuing to be integrated into the work and will help accelerate it in Tahiti. We have read the script. We know who wins in the end. We are on the winning team!
Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.
President and Sister Banner