Week 31: Philippines Government Calls for All Non-Filipino Missionaries to Leave the Country Because of the COVID-19 Virus - No Flight Route to Kiribati
This blog post is based on the conversation with Heidi Gutierrez. On March 19th, I received a message from Elder Bateiti stating that he was at the mission home with 70 other foreign missionaries waiting to get on the bus to Manila. The church had chartered 6 jumbo jets to return missionaries to their home countries. On Saturday, there was a post from a parent stating that the missionaries had indeed made it to Manila and that the Legazpi missionaries were staying in a hotel next to the airport. Most of the information was about missionaries heading to the United States and Canada. I inquired about missionaries from the Pacific Islands. One of the sister missionaries mother sent me a private message about Elder Bateiti and 2 sister missionaries from the Legazpi Mission. On Sunday night, Elder Bateiti contacted me on Messenger and here is what he said. Three of us were taken off from the bus. The sister from Australia was crying and she told me while we were wai