Dear Parents,
While rains and flooding continue to be an issue in Wilmington and Fayetteville, all locations where the missionaries are located appear to be through the bulk of this storm. Only light rain and mild winds continue for the most part.
Today, all missionaries serving in the northern zones will be moving back to their apartments, barring any damage that may be discovered. Missionaries from the Wilmington and Fayetteville zones will be paired with missionary companionships in northern zones to live in their apartments and work in their areas. This will enable them to return to something approximating regular missionary life right away, in addition to the community service we will be doing as a mission.
We believe that in the coming days, we will be able to retrieve the clothing and personal belongings for most of the missionaries who were serving in the Fayetteville zones. More questions remain about the belongings for those who were serving in the Wilmington zone and in the Lumberton and Pembroke districts. We just do not know yet when we will be able to get back in those areas and what the conditions of apartments will look like when we do. The latest reports for those areas are actually getting worse.
Many of you have kindly offered help or assistance. Our current plan is to set up a group gift registry on Amazon, where we will designate needed items (shirts, slacks, ties, tops, skirts, dresses, socks, belts, shoes) with numbers and sizing to give each missionary in the Wilmington/Lumberton/Pembroke area a few more outfits of missionary attire. We should have this posted on Amazon by sometime tomorrow (Monday) and push out awareness via social media. Any financial support you care to give would be most welcome. However, we will open this up to anyone who wants to donate, and I am confident the response will ensure every missionary is covered. We also have on order from stakes in Virginia, boxes of used work clothes the missionaries can get for clean-up services.
In general, the missionaries have been wonderfully resilient and upbeat through this whole process. You should be proud of them. I certainly am.
Faithfully,
President Holland
North Carolina Raleigh Mission
