I know that when I was a missionary in France in the early 80's, we had a secret code that could alert us to a potential need to work out way to the mission home in case of a social emergency. This was, of course, at a time when most missionaries only had access to a pay phone.

Is there anyone out there who is aware of how the church is dealing with its missionaries in France and Belgium at the moment?

If you go to preparetoserve.com, you can click on "missions", find the France - Paris mission and read some reactions to the attack.

One sister opined that the attack was Satan trying to derail their new plan to increase baptisms via prayer on the hour, every hour, beginning Saturday. By staging the attack on Friday, Satan was trying to preempt them! But his plan didn’t work;they prayed anyway!

No word yet regarding an increase in baptisms...

Christ I am slow today. I had totaly no idea you were refering to the pscopathic serial murderers at large.

Btw I have to say I was amazed how little was mentioned about the Paris attacks on the exmo boards. But then I guess as an Englishman it hit home a bit harder and lets face hit we barely noticed the similar number of murders in the same week when the occured in the middle east. Shame on us all.

They're also worried this violence will spread.

I think we don't discuss it on RfM because political discussions would result and are not allowed,

true enough. I could live without all the who is worse muslims or mormons or chritians debates it woul spark off.

I was there (France-Paris mission) '79-80.
I don't recall us having a secret code...?
Maybe that came after I left.

With cell phones, texts, and e-mails, they probably just sent an electronic blast to the mishies saying "shelter in place."
And then sent them out again the next day :)

The current MP there is the son of the Versailles stake president when I was there. He was a toddler at the time, but his two older sisters were quite cute...and tempting!

The code, as I was to learn from a companion, never heard it from anyone with mission authority, was this: if we received a telegram or a message from a member that said we were to pack our books, that meant we were to be ready to leave our apartment if necessary. If the message was to ship our books,we were to make our way to the mission office as quickly as possible.

Were you there after President Robinson?
Perhaps this was the idea of his replacement...?

Switzerland '81 to '83.