A Voicemail from President Holt (November 24, 2021)

By March 16, Peru was in lockdown.  We got to talk to Caden over Google hangouts on March 16 (I think that's what day it was) because Peru was allowing everyone one more morning to go to the store, etc.  We sure hope he likes tuna and saltine crackers! They had enough water even though one of the water bags broke as they were walking home with it all.  The lockdown was set for 15 days.

March 16, 2020 - message from Sis. Kristin Richey (Caden's mission mom)

Hi Parents! Day 1 of the quarantine was relatively calm. This morning several roads were blocked by the army and police in Lima. Soldiers were present in front of every market to discourage hoarding. Things were calm as people spent the morning making a last minute trip to the market. Each companionship has a two week supply of non-perishable food and water, as well as hand sanitizer. Today many of them were also able to get fresh food such as bread, eggs, milk, and fruit from a market near them. Some of them were able to talk with you. Others no. In the afternoon the streets were empty and silent. All of our missionaries are safe and with supplies. We will contact our missionaries every day. Things are quiet and calm. We will get through it! Much love to you all!

These are our six Elders in the office (they are living in quarantine there) and still at their posts!

Estos son nuestros seis Élderes de la oficina (están viviendo en cuarentena allá). Aún en sus posiciones trabajando!!!  

Left to right
Elder Johnson, assistant
Elder Romney, assistant
Elder Jensen, travel and health secretary
Elder Félix, executive secretary
Elder Gorringe, financial secretary
Elder Moronta, Immigration and Supplies secretary

Gracias Élderes por su trabajo!!!!! Nos ayuda mucho!
Thank you, Elders, for your work!! It helps us so much!!

March 21, 2020 - message from Pres. Mark Richey, Caden's mission president

Dear Families of Mision Peru Lima Sur- Day 6 of the national quarantine. All is well in the mission. All missionaries are in their rooms. All have a phone to call me any time. All have their food and supplies. Most have a pensionista and are allowed to walk with a mask on to their pensionista's house. There appears so be no food shortages. I walked to the local supermarket and it was well stocked even in the fresh food section.

Our mission technology is improving daily. I am able to connect through a group text with the entire mission. I am in constant contact with the office Elders by phone, text, whatsapp Skype, webex, and zoom. The zone leaders are practicing group conference calls each day. It is simple and works very well. Each missionary companionship will have a well defined sabbath meeting tomorrow at 10am with their companion, which will included a hymn, invocation, lesson (come, follow me), hymn and benediction. At 6pm the entire mission will have a group conference call using Uber Conference App.

I feel the situation is calm and under control. The missionaries are very happy and exuberant when I reach them. It will be a good reset and rest for them.

We are monitoring the worldwide situation and Peru's local news agencies for any and all updates. This is the best source to contact me or Sister Richey here on this site.

I will say it again, your children are heroes and have been raised by goodly parents. It is a blessing to see them mature emotionally and spiritually during their missions.

From the General Conference of October, 2019,

"Trusting in the Lord includes trusting in His timing and requires patience and endurance that outlast the storms of life. I testify that as we commend ourselves unto the Lord and consistently and resiliently trust in Jesus Christ and His divine purposes in our lives, He will visit us with assurances, speak peace to our souls, and cause us to hope for deliverance in him."

Trusting in the Lord from Peru!

With love,

President & Sister Kristin Richey

March 22, 2020

I had texted Marne Reneer in our ward to check on what she'd heard from her son, Elijah, who is in Argentina.  She hadn't heard anything. . . but later that afternoon she called to say she had just gotten word from his mission president that all missionaries in South America were going to be sent home to their home countries.  We hadn't heard anything different than quarantine for Peru, but then Jeremy got an email from the U.S. Embassy in Peru about U.S. citizens coming home on chartered aircraft.

We were grateful for Marne's call and the email from the Embassy as it prepared us for this facebook post that evening about 6 p.m. our time.

Dear families of the Mision Peru Lima Sur

We just received instructions that All non-peruvian missionaries will be returned to their home countries as soon as possible. This will be sad news for most of the missionaries. I will be speaking to the entire mission at 6:00pm local time by conference call. They will have many questions , many of which I won't be able to answer. We still have 9 days left on the national quarantine which may be extended. Some flights ( 1 or 2) leave each day, some to the USA. The USA state department is bartering with Peru for more flights. We have opened a state Department account for each missionary. You may have received an Email from the state department, this is not a hoax, just a advisory for all who have an account We have in Peru more than a thousand USA and other foreign national missionaries. It will take soon time, 1- 4 weeks to process them all and to deal with the quarantine restrictions. Each will return to their homes and be reassigned after a 14 day quarantine. Some will be released if they have less than 6 months remaining or 3 months remaining for the sister missionaries. 

This is a significant change in their mission plans and dreams. As Elder Bednar has stated , " We are called first to the missionary work, and secondly to an assignment"

I will update and answer questions as well as I can with new information as it becomes available.

President Mark Richey

After we read it, we all prayed for Caden and the missionaries all over the world who would be receiving this news.

March 23, 2020

Dear Families of the Mision Peru Lima South

Quick update. Some of you will connect with your missionaries today by phone or internet. The missionaries are allowed to walk to their pensionista who may have a computer to use to make contact with their families. Some pensionista do not have celular or computer connection so your missionary may not contact you. I will probable have all missionaries capable to call home tomorrow without leaving their room. I believe by tomorrow most families will receive a call. 

I spoke with all missionaries last night and informed them of the near future returned to their native countries. Most consider it a part of their missionary journey. Our missionary motto 

comes from Nephi encouraging his brothers…”Subamos” ( Rise up!) At the end of the conference call a sustained repetitive chant spontaneously and energetically occurred…. “Subamos, Subamos, Subamos!” ( Rise up, Rise up, Rise Up). Your children are heroes. 

In regard to the State Department Emails, please ignore them, we are processing them in our office. 

You will receive updates as I receive more information. I suspect that missionaries will be returning in 7 to 28 days. The quarantine ends in 7 more days on March 30 at Midnight. Most probable is large groups of missionaries on the same flight leaving the next day at the soonest. 

Pdte y Hna Richey

This brought tears.  Hard times.  More than ever we need the comfort of personal revelation as we all tread unknown waters.  These amazing young people are braving new situations and will be part of revamping missionary work.  I don't think it will ever look the same again.  They ARE heroes.

Jeremy and I were out picking countertops for our new house on the 23rd when Caden called us.  It was by phone so we didn't get to see him but it was so good to hear him talk and talk.  He apologized for talking so much but he hadn't been able to talk to someone other than his companion for so long he just couldn't stop!  He said he felt like he'd been living in a box.  He'd been reading 80 pages of the Book of Mormon a day.  He said he had been blessed with the gift of tongues the last 3 months and he wondered why.  He hopes that with his new assignment he will be able to speak Spanish.  His pensionista had told him of cheap ways to come back and visit Peru.

He said that when he first heard he was going home he felt terrible, like a failure, like, really?  Like I only got 3 months here? That's nothing.  Im going to go home and get reassigned and people are going to ask me throughout my life where I went on my mission and I'm not going to be able to say Peru because I was only here for 3 months! I'm going to have to say Georgia or something. . . and I just felt terrible about that, like, really?  And then I realized (and this is really deep and I probably wouldn't have said it before my mission) but Ive been super prideful about the experiences that I was going to have in Peru and I kind of wanted those experiences basically to flex on people, like to say, Hey hey look at what I did.  So I feel like this is Heavenly Father's way of saying - psshhh - hey, you focus on the work and I'll give you experiences.  But I've come to terms with it and it's all good now.

He was really upbeat.  He thought he was going to be released when he comes home until he is reassigned so was excited to play Apex, even though he knew he probably shouldn't be happy about thinking about playing it.  Oy.  Guess he hasn't been on that mission long enough. ; ) It was hard to end that phone call.  But we felt a peace that all is going to be well even though there is so much unknown.  How will there be room for the influx of missionaries to serve in the U.S.?  What is missionary work going to look like with the world still in quarantine?  what is the time between Caden coming home and reassignment?  Is he really going to be released?  Will it be months before he is called again?, etc., etc.

March 25, 2020

Update at 12:13 -  2 flights scheduled to leave Peru to the USA today. The state department emphasised that idle, sick and elderly tourists have preference. Missionaries are considered to be resident residents. The office of the area had just finished a teleconference and declared that the A plan would fret planes for all the missionaries in Lima (all six missions) and would try to fly them from Lima to the USA on Saturday. This is a hope and a wish right now. The remaining missionaries would travel from the peripheral cities when the rooms were opened in Lima. This would happen after the quarantine was lifted at midnight on Monday, flying to the USA on Tuesday. I give you this information so I don't give you false hope, but just to tell you what I know so far. I still think the big exodus will probably start for all next Tuesday and will need 3-4 days to be completed. The missionaries who return to other countries in Latin America will require more time, one to two weeks due to the quarantine restrictions in these countries.
I hope all of you were able to connect with your missionaries yesterday. If you were unable to connect, please contact us and we will use all available methods to get them to connect and connect.
Stay calm and stay patient in Peru
"Let's go up"
Pdte Mark Richey

Update at 12:43 - things are starting to move

1:00pm report from the state department

As of 1:00PM today, two planes carrying approximately 300 Americans from Lima and Cusco are departing for the United States, bringing the total of repatriated Americans from Peru to over 1000 people.

Senior U.S. officials maintain constant communication with the Government of Peru and are working around the clock to secure authorization for more repatriation flights this week, as well as authorization for U.S. citizens in other parts of Peru to travel to Lima by land or air.

At this time, only American Citizens, certain Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) such as those accompanying unaccompanied minors, or valid visa holding medical and health professionals working on the COVID19 worldwide response may be manifested on chartered flights to the United States.

March 26, 2020

Alert – Additional quarantine measures - U.S. Embassy Lima, Peru (Mar. 26, 2020)

Location: Peru (country-wide)

Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra announced at 12:22 p.m. on March 26 that Peru will extend its state of national emergency for 13 more days until April 12. Quarantine measures and border closures will continue. The U.S. Embassy recommends U.S. citizens in Peru adhere to all quarantine measures due to the outbreak of COVID-19. We will continue to schedule flights for U.S. citizens to return home to the United States.

Yesterday we negotiated four flights to depart today. Unfortunately the flight carrying Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheres Affairs Julie Chung was canceled late last evening. She is actively working with the U.S. Embassy and senior Washington officials from Miami in preparation for the next available flight. We are rescheduling all American citizens who were originally manifested for that flight for tomorrow. Please do not travel to the airport until you receive an email from the U.S. Embassy in Lima with confirmation you are on the flight.

We are transforming a U.S.-Government-provided hangar at the Peruvian Air Force Base near Lima into a processing center to better facilitate the repatriation process.

The embassy has secured bus transportation for manifested passengers in Cusco. Refer to your confirmation emails for travel instructions.

We are working hard to bring #AmericansHome.

Pdte Richey---- This is somewhat disappointing news. It will slow the process of return, probably for the anticipated second wave of missionaries being brought back into Lima after the lifting of the quarantine which is not now until April 13, 2020.

I will provide more information as I get it.

Subamos,

Pdte Kristin Richey

What does this mean? Is Caden not coming home until the middle of April?

March 28, 2020

Great news!!!! First 2 Elders taking the embassy bus to the airport for flight to Miami and then home. More information to follow. It is a very fluid situation. I don’t knew when others will leave, but I will inform you as it come. We are at the embassy making in person contacts which is being very effective!

And now a couple hours later, a message from Meredith Richey, daughter of Pres. and Sis. Richey:

2 hrs

Hi friends. I just had a great phone call with my mom. She was in the parking lot of the Embassy where they’ve spent all morning negotiating the return of a few sweet elders. I have to share her touching words. She said they’ve been working day and night to ensure the safety and comfort of the elders and sisters. She told me she used her last few pieces of bread and whatever snacks should could find at her apartment, to make sack lunches (like the ones she made for me my whole childhood) for the elders who will be spending the morning at the embassy, not sure where/when their next chance to eat will be. When she realized they’d have an authorized letter from the embassy, and a chance to drive by the mission office where 12 elders are camped out, she scraped together what they had on hand and made a full crockpot of noodles, chicken and Alfredo, in the middle of the night, for office elders to share. They were stopped at barricades multiple times. Our phone call ended with her saying she had to run into a bodega she spotted that had oranges for sale, to get as many as she can for the next set of sack lunches. I rarely talk to my dad because he is tirelessly working to care for his other 180 children, as he should be.
Your children are in good hands. They are safe, fed, and inching closer to coming home safely. Stay positive. Keep praying. Subamos!

I didn't see Caden in these pics so am not sure where he is or if he's coming home today or not.  Jeremy got another email from the embassy saying 2 flights are leaving Lima for the U.S. today.

Then I just got a message from Caden's companion's mom saying they logged into their son's email last night and there was an email telling them to go to the embassy today.

So, where is Caden?  Maybe at the embassy.  Is he coming home now?  Maybe so.

But we just don't know.

I take comfort in knowing that Heavenly Father knows exactly where he is and Pres. Richey does too.

It will all be fine.

Subamos!