The rest of the story There is more to the story I told on Sunday as part of an extensive look back at the church’s response to the coronavirus.
The story begins and ends with the way Elder Jeffrey R. Holland ministered to the missionaries of the Korea Seoul Mission while they were quarantined before 76% were evacuated to their home countries in March.
There wasn’t space in my article to describe the remarkable way the mission president and his wife have looked after the remaining 24% of the missionaries. Those 30 missionaries, all of them Korean — “All of a sudden, we were 100% fluent,” President Brad Taylor said — had to relearn how to do missionary work online from their apartments.
There are lessons in the tender care exhibited by President Taylor and Sister Ann Taylor, and there is something wonderful about the resilience of the human spirit in the way the missionaries reacted.
As the virus that causes COVID-19 initially spread in Korea, some of the parents of the missionaries naturally asked the Taylors how they would keep their sons and daughters safe.
Those questions continued even after leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had them evacuate 101 of their 131 missionaries to their native countries. The Taylors moved the remaining missionaries to five centers of strength for the church in the Seoul area, all within 15-20 minutes of the mission home.
Then the real work began.
The Taylors encouraged the missionaries to engage in self-care, like taking a one-hour walk each day. They regularly went and picked up companionships and brought them back to the office to feed them a meal. They set up videoconference Family Home Evenings, complete with online games. They scheduled videoconferences for the missionaries with people like Jon Schmidt of The Piano Guys, BYU professor Brad Wilcox (now a member of the Sunday School general presidency) and President Taylor’s brother, Brigham, a Disney move producer.
For 10 weeks, they held a nightly videoconference devotional with the 30 missionaries. |
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But earlier this month, their online missionary work was proving so successful, as illustrated in Sunday’s story, that the missionaries approached the Taylors with a message.
“They finally came to us,” President Taylor recalled, “and they said, ‘We’re OK, and we’re busy at night. We don’t need a devotional each night.’ Two to three weeks ago, they weaned us off the nightly devotionals.”
Interestingly, the Korea Seoul Mission has grown over the past month. A steady stream of native Korean missionaries called to serve in missions in other areas of the world have been reassigned to the Korea Seoul Mission. Today, in fact, 55% of the missionaries serving in the Korea Seoul Mission were not originally called there but to Los Angeles, Temple Square, New York, Australia, Canada, the Philippines and New Zealand.
The Taylors now have 45 missionaries. Meanwhile, they long to see the Americans, Canadians, Cambodians, Filipinos, Australians and New Zealanders who were evacuated two months ago and reassigned to serve temporarily in their home countries until the pandemic subsides.
“Not a day goes by,” Sister Taylor told me, “that we don’t hear from one of our missionaries elsewhere in the world asking how their Korean friends and companions are doing.”
“I’m happy to be serving again,” they tell the Taylors, “but I can’t wait for the day I can return to serve in Korea.” |
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What I’m Reading ... The Church News published a new video with a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the bicentennial proclamation on the Restoration in the Sacred Grove.
The Church News also published an interesting story about how some general authorities are called to serve as mission presidents. The piece includes an interview with Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who is chairman of the Missionary Executive Council.
My colleague Lottie Johnson wrote about how to audition for the Tabernacle Choir this year.
Another colleague, Jay Drew, wrote a story about a delightful, nationally ranked BYU pole vaulter married to a Cougar quarterback. You also should read Jody Genessy’s story on the death of former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.
ESPN is worried about whether the pandemic might be the end of the “high five.” I sure hope not. The network has an entire documentary on the creation of the high five and once published a magazine story on its invention. |
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These four photos share another untold story of how the Korea Seoul Mission used technology to teach the gospel. In the first, a Korean woman named Jeong JunHyun, left, is taught by videoconference by Sister Isaure Guidi, top right, a former Seoul missionary who had returned home to New Caledonia, and Sisters Park Sion, Lee Chaeeun and Ann Taylor.
In the second photo, Sisters Park Sion and Lee Chaeeun teach by video call.
The third photo was taken before Jeong JunHyun was baptized by President Brad Taylor. Afterward, JunHyun and the missionaries called Sister Guidi in New Caledonia by cellphone to celebrate. |
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