Received our marching orders - Wednesday, March 16th.

The last instructions from the mission home Tuesday night was for all missionaries to get to the stores first thing in the morning and purchase two weeks worth of food and water and then go back to their apartments and stay inside. Low levels of radiation have been tracked at Yokosuka and Atsugi Naval Air near Zama Army base but nothing yet at Yokota Air Force Base. At 6:30 AM we received a text from the mission home to disregard the previous night's message and for all missionaries to pack one suitcase and small bag and be prepared to move to another mission in Japan tomorrow. Their other bag and bicycle would be collected later and forwarded on to them. Later in the morning this instruction was changed to have them pack both suitcases and leave their bicycles. Since we are in a bit of a different circumstance than the younger missionaries we don't know what is in store for us. We are assigned as Military Relations missionaries so don't know how useful we would be in a regular Japanese mission since we don't know the language. We do have access to a mission car so could be of help transporting missionaries around. Right now we are just packing up a few things that had purchased to have mailed back to the states. We will wait for the mission president to call and tell us what to do. It is a bit difficult for me (Sister Arnell) not to know what is going on, but it did give me the opportunity to update this blog before we take of to points unknown and maybe not have access to the Internet for awhile.

I was able to post our status on Facebook as events unfolded so when my family woke up on Friday morning in the States to the news they could get the real story from my previous posts. Telephone and cell phone service has been very spotty since Friday but people have been able to post data on Facebook or by sending text messages.

We will keep you posted on what is happening.