2020... Like None Other

This year has turned out to be "like none other", and turning our lives upside down. Beginning in Nov/Dec of 2019 there was a new virus in China. Early in January there was beginning to be news of that virus spreading. One of the retailers here in Texas, began their preparations for a pandemic, even though the reality of that didn't hit until March. The main grocery stores here in Texas... HEB ... were better prepared than most for what happened in March, when people were ordered to stay home and social distance from each other. This "stay at home" order has shut down almost the entire economy of the world. Within two weeks, thousands of people lost their jobs, the medical community is functioning without enough medical equipment, schools are closed. While the number of actual deaths has been a small percentage, mass measures have been taken to try to "flatten" the growing curve of confirmed cases of Covid 19. It is yet to be seen what the realty of damage will be to the economy of the United States. This "stay at home" order hasn't been much of a hardship for us. I was able to get groceries during the first two weeks... thanks to HEB curbside orders. I also briefly shopped at Dollar General and WalMart. Plus life is pretty simple for just two of us. The whole shut down has been a different story for the rest of our family. Each situation slightly different from the others. Each with various challenges of it's own. Life in California, Utah, Texas, and Scotland, each have it's own set of concerns and challenges. At-home-school and at-home-work presents many unforeseen struggles. A good description is Mike's situation... the schools are in crisis mode and his job is in crisis mode. While the crisis mode of the church has hit Sam and Audrey especially hard with the callings that they have. Church meetings were suspended early on... later the temples closed ... and many missionaries came home early. But... looking back it appears that the members of the church were being prepared for such a time as this. New programs and policies have been put in place during the past couple of years, to help ease the transition to home-based-church. We were told last fall that April General Conference would be "like none other". Little did we know the full extent of that description. This Wednesday will be the first of April, and we are still in "lock down" for the entire month of April. No one knows exactly what to expect during the next few months. We only know that everything is different, than what we expected. It is a good thing that some of our expenses have been cut, because it is looking like our income will also be cut. Our house is still for sale, but it looks like the peak-spring-real-estate-season is dead. We have a great listing now, with an additional realtor ... with some new photos, but everything is on hold for now.  I can see that people are still "looking", but who knows how long it will take for people to recover to start buying again. The whole world is living in uncertainty for now.