GOOD NEWS ... THE MORMONS FLEE THE COUNTRY :-)

https://milesquest.boardingarea.com/2020/03/22/hundreds-of-mormon-missionaries-returned-from-the-philippines-on-chartered-delta-flights-while-their-families-ignored-social-distancing-at-the-a irport/?utm_source=BoardingArea&utm_medium=facebook

 

Well that's very disappointing.

They should have stayed and offered thoughts and prayers.

 

Large crowds of their over-enthusiastic relatives who greeted them at the airport got a scolding from Utah's US Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney - himself a Mormon - for ignoring social distancing guidelines and airport requests to limit the reception.
Given the situation in the Philippines and the amount of travelling these folks do, there's a good chance that some are returning home with the virus.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...s-mormons-at-airport-who-greeted-missionaries

 

There's a little blurb at the end of the article that tuba-coma linked that makes it sound like it was a church decision because the travel restrictions within the Philippines were preventing them from carrying out their mission.
I agree with your assessment of their beliefs AND of their character, at least the few I've personally known. They were pretty decent folks. They are also considered by some to be the original "preppers" in the US

 

And if all but one person dies in the crisis, that one remaining person, if religious, will be grateful there is a God.

 

I did not say they are a..holes. I respect religious freedom totally. I do not respect authoritarian, homophobic and ultraconservative communities not allowing their members a free mind. and I have no respect for missionairies that are running away at the first sign of a crisis. Jesus stayed and helped, as I heard. that's the benchmark - sorry, Mormons.

 

A missionary (many in fact) went to a new land and found the people to be, by his standards, rather ignorant.

He held out the Bible and told them to kneel and pray.

When they opened their eyes, they were holding the Bible - and the missionary was holding their gold, silver and lands.

 

Yes I know the saying, "They came to do good, and they did well." But speaking of missionaries, ".. Established in 1901 as Silliman Institute by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, it is the first American school in the Philippines and the entire Asian continent. The university is named after Dr. Horace Brinsmade Silliman, a retired businessman and philanthropist from Cohoes, New York who gave the initial sum of $10,000 to start the school. .... For the first half of the 20th century, Silliman was run and operated by Americans. After the Second World War Filipinos began to assume more administrative positions, culminating in the appointment of Silliman's first Filipino president in 1952."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silliman_University