For non-Russian missionaries, a visa is only good for 90 days. Exactly 90 days, not 3 months, so the office keeps close track and makes sure each missionary goes out of the country around day 88, just to be on the safe side. Currently the country we go to is Finland. That may change in the future. We were told "the government" (don't know if that's the Russian government or the US, or maybe the host country) decides where we'll go to pick up our new visas.
Visa trips and migrations are very disruptive to missionary work because it affects not only the missionary who leaves, but also the companion. In the past that meant that the companion became part of a threesome companionship, and the three missionaries had to keep up the work in both areas. Now under the new guidelines it means he goes to Novosibirsk and spends a few days there street contacting with the companion of another missionary who is going on visa, which will be less and less fun for them as the weather gets colder. We have to cover their group in English Club if they're gone on a Tuesday night or Gospel English on a Thursday night. For visa trips it's also disruptive because of the nature of the flights. They leave early one morning, spend most of the day traveling or waiting in airports, have a day in Helsinki to pick up their passports with the new visa, go to the temple and shop (Helsinki has a lot of "American" foods and some stores that cater to Americans), and then fly back to Novosibirsk on an overnight flight and then take a bus or the train back home, returning about 60 hours after they left, absolutely exhausted. There's a four-hour time difference between Helsinki and "home" and they're gone just long enough to mix up their sleep schedules. Being young, they think they can take advantage of the extra four hours the first night, but forget they lose four hours when they get back home. However, the missionaries love going to Helsinki and the temple. Fortunately, senior couples get to stay an extra day in Helsinki because of the rigors of travel on their old bodies. We use the same early morning/overnight flights, but don't have to rush to fit everything in in Helsinki. Now that we're in Novokuznetsk, we take an overnight train on Monday night and return early Saturday morning, again traveling on an overnight train. We like the change of scenery and LOVE being in the Helsinki temple. It's too bad the travel part is so brutal. Three months ago we didn't want to have to travel three nights on our visa trip. We've decided that's better than what we put up with last time where we had to change airports, had long layovers, and got delayed for hours because of fog.
Often with all the travel involved, there are other problems. The last group to go on visa got stuck in Helsinki because of the weather and missed their connecting flight, so they had to hang around in Moscow for a day. Fun for them, but more time away from missionary work. Another time the Elders got on the plane in Helsinki and just before takeoff one of them commented that he didn't see any workers on the tarmac. Between the time they boarded and when they took off, the ground crews went on strike. The luggage didn't get to Russia for a couple of days. And here the airline doesn't deliver it to your home. The missionaries had to keep checking with the airport to find out when their luggage would be ready for them to pick up. Because of some of the things we (meaning all missionaries from the US) like to pick up in Finland are "liquids" like Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce or French's mustard, we often check our luggage on the return trip.
In addition to the disruption of missionary work, these trips are very expensive. It would be nice if the Russian government would just let the Church pay a visa renewal fee and not require us to travel out of the country. However, we think that going to the temple is a gift, so for now we'll enjoy the mini some-expenses-paid "vacation" without complaint. Unlike the younger missionaries, senior couples pay for most of their own day-to-day expenses; however, the Church does cover most of the expenses incurred on visa trips including airfare and hotels.
The missionaries from the other former Soviet countries don't need visas, but they do have to do a "migration" trip and leave the country every 90 days. Our Latvian elder has to return to Latvia and is gone for nearly a week. He helps the missionaries there; when his migration paperwork is done he gets to come back. Our Ukrainian missionaries leave their areas in time to arrive in Barnaul in the evening, stay overnight with the zone leaders (elders) or a member or senior couple (sisters) and then early the next morning, 5:30-6:00ish someone picks them up, drives them over the border into Kazakhstan where they get to sit around for a few hours while their migration is processed and then drive back. Usually they catch a bus back to their area that night. One time a sister forgot to grab her passport on her way out the door and left it on the counter in her apartment. Someone got it to the train in Novosibirsk and the sister had to go to the train station in Barnaul to pick it up mid-morning the next day. They didn't get back from Kazakhstan until late that evening and had to stay with us another night before catching a 6:30 am bus the next morning. She was SO embarrassed!
The office really has to plan ahead so they can buy tickets from whatever city the missionary will be leaving from. This means that transfers are actually planned about three weeks in advance to avoid last-minute expensive tickets, but kept very hush-hush. Once I talked with President Trejo (our former mission president) on a Friday morning and during the conversation he said something about transfers that would be announced that night. He apologized to me but said that he doesn't talk to ANYONE (except the travel secretary) about the transfers before they're announced to the missionary, five days before the actual transfer. President Gibbons thinks the missionaries need more time for planning and saying goodbyes, so he announces transfers ten days before.
The timing for our next visa trip had us traveling overnight on New Years Eve. New Years is one of the two BIG holidays in Russia. It's such a big drinking day that the missionaries don't try to do any missionary work. Church will be one hour and then we'll all head to our apartments and stay put for the rest of the day. Anyway, rather than try to travel that night, the mission office moved our trip up a week. That means we'll get to be in Helsinki to see all the Christmas sights, exhibits, lights and hoopla! We're
very excited about that.
This week in Russia:
It's time to reveal who the Russians are. We were a little surprised that there is so little ethnic diversity here, but yet there is no "Russian" look. That's why we included this--so you could be as surprised as we were! A lot of Germans look German, Brits have a British look to them, but Russians look like, um, nothing much we can pick out. A big part of it is that we don't understand how people who look so normal can open their mouths and have all sorts of unintelligible sounds come out, person after person after person!
A few people guessed one of the Russians, but the only one who guessed all three correctly was my dad. He also guessed the other nine incorrectly. Here are the pictures again but with their names underneath. Let's see if that helps you figure out which ones are Russian.
Elder Howard, Elder Turley, Старейшина Варган (he's over 2 meters tall when he doesn't slouch), Elder Newman, Elder Bounous, Elder Kelly (who is now with us in Novokuznetsk)
Sister Djurich, Sister Trottier, Sister Margolies, Sister Holmes, Сестра Василевская, Сестра Филатова (they are stepsisters and companions right now--yes, sister Sisters)
If you can't guess from their names, maybe you need to learn your alphabet again.
For each of you may this be a merry Christmas,
