Member-only story
The Return of the Mormons
Chartered jets retrieve Mormon youth from around the world
It made headlines two weeks ago that multiple Mormon missionaries around the world were being brought back to the United States in response to Coronavirus travel bans. Although the Church’s initial stance on the matter was to keep missionaries in their respective locations, the constantly evolving nature of the pandemic has forced them to reconsider. The Missionary tradition of the Mormon faith is one they hold near and dear, and it is no wonder than many Missionaries would have preferred to stay abroad. With over 67,000 Missionaries in more than four hundred locations, however, Coronavirus posed a serious liability to the faith’s proselytizers. Efforts to transport them back began in mid-February in response to the outbreaks in Italy, but moved slowly on a region-by-region basis. Despite the US State Department’s warning two weeks ago strongly encouraging all Americans to return as soon as possible, international flights chartered by the church continue to land as recently as today. An unscheduled Fiji Airways flight from Nadi and a LATAM flight from Lima landed in Salt Lake City this afternoon. Chartered flights like these have been arriving in the city for weeks.
While most of the United States has been on lockdown to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mormon…
