President Sandberg is home

Last week Stephen and my mission president came home. Yesterday his wife and him had their report in sacrament and then they had a get together at their home afterward. I just love President Sandberg. He is on of the sweetest men and I know. It was funny, when they saw Stephen and I they were like, look, it is the couple that suprised us all. It was wonderful to see so many people from the mission, and to catch up.

President Sandberg told us during his talk that no more American missionaries are being sent to Russia. The Russian government became a lot stricter on visas and so the americans had to leave the country every three months to get new visas. In order to renew their visa the missionaries had to go to another country, but most countries said they had to wait ten days to process the papers. There were some countries that made an exception, and could do it in only a few, so they had the missionaries going to Prague, Spain, and The Czech Republic. How neat, but very expensive for the church. This is why they have changed it. Only members from neighboring countries will go to Russia now. I hope that the Russian members step it up so that they have enough missionaries. When I was still serving about half the sisters were Russians and maybe five elders were from Russia.

All things considered I feel very lucky to have served in Russia and met the people I did. I can't imagine serving anywhere else.