3 Weeks to Go

Time is moving so fast, Adam has 3 weeks left before he leaves on his mission.  This morning when we checked on the Brazil Visa Status website it said that his visa had been authorized.  We were so excited!  Yesterday, a young man in our ward called because he had just received his travel package which had his visa to Brazil in it, he was extremely excited.  He and Adam leave the same day for the Missionary Training Center in Brazil.  There have been so many problems with visas to Brazil for many months, that this is truly incredible that they will be going directly to Brazil.  So many missionaries have had to go to the Missionary Training Center in Utah first while waiting for their visas.  Some missionaries have even been temporarily reassigned to missions in the United States while waiting for their visas.  Something has happened in the last few weeks as visas have finally been coming through with hundreds of missionaries finally getting their visas to Brazil.  It is amazing that Adam will be able to go directly to Brazil.  We are so grateful!

5 Weeks to Go

Just a quick update on the mission prep status.  Adam received his online visa application from the Brazil Consulate which is a good sign.  A lot of the recent missionaries called to Brazil didn't get to this phase of the visa process until they were in the MTC.  We can check the status online and it currently is in the "Received" status.  It still has to go through the "Processing" and "Authorized" before it is "Ready for Collection" so we still have a long wait ahead, but we are keeping our fingers crossed and including it in our prayers.

We scheduled April 9, 2011 for his temple endowments to take place.  We will need to get his whites for that and for baptisms while he is in Brazil.

All of Adam's medical items are now complete as he went to the doctor a few weeks ago to get the last of his immunizations done.  His arms were sore for a few days from the last three shots. 

Last week Adam received a letter from the Mission President in Vitoria, Brazil, that was pretty exciting for him.  He tells Adam that Vitoria translated means "Victory!" and that it is a fairly new mission being formed on July 1, 2009.  The letter also gave him some specific information about his mission, there are four stakes and three member districts.  The mission covers the entire state of Espirito Santo as well as portions of two other states - Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. 

So what does he have left to do before he starts packing?  Pretty much just the temple and needing to buy personal items (shampoo, shaving cream, etc.).  When he got his call in December, April 26th seemed so far away and now it is just around the corner.  I think we are right on track on the preparations, I know it will be here before we know it.  Just keep praying for that Visa!  

Brazil Visa Problems

Visa snags slow LDS missions to Brazil

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: January 31, 2011 11:28AM

Hundreds of Mormon missionaries assigned to serve in Brazil increasingly find themselves preaching not in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo or Fortaleza, but instead in Philadelphia, Pocatello, Idaho, or even Provo.

The LDS Church’s São Paulo Missionary Training Center, which can accommodate up to 700 trainees, currently houses only about 60, none of them U.S. citizens. And the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has lowered the missionary age from 19 to 18 for male Brazilians to make up for the loss of full-time American missionaries.

The reason? Visa snags. And who can Mormon missionaries and their parents blame for the delays? The U.S. State Department and its counterpart in Brazil.

This is no small headache for the LDS Church. Brazil boasts more than a million members, the world’s third-largest Mormon population, after the United States and Mexico. It has 27 missions, more than any country outside the U.S. About 10 percent of the faith’s 52,000 missionaries are called to Brazil. Any disruption in the flow of full-time missionaries could slow the number of converts and hamper the stability of LDS congregations there.

Waiting for weeks or months for visas takes an emotional toll on individual missionaries.

Rachel Smith, of Taylorsville, assigned to the Brazil Maceio Mission, was initially told to report to the São Paulo training center in October 2009. But a week before her departure, she got a call saying she would learn Portuguese instead at the Provo MTC. She ended up staying five weeks beyond the usual two-month training, waiting for her visa. (Some of those waiting on visas are temporarily assigned to other missions.)

“Rachel tried to keep a positive attitude,” said her mother, Susan Smith, on Tuesday. “But she said it was hard to see people arrive at the MTC after her and leave before her.”

Susan Smith also noted the issue’s financial impact. Her daughter left for Brazil a day after her visa arrived without warning and, her mother said, the airfare was several times more than it would have been if the church had been able to buy it well in advance.

Observers say the problem has escalated in the past 18 months — after the U.S. government moved to a fully computerized visa process and required visitors from certain countries such as Brazil to be fingerprinted, pass a background check and pay higher fees.

Brazil complained about the new rules, wrote Mormon blogger Kent Larsen (times-andseasons.org), who is in the South American country this week attending a Mormon studies conference.

“It has also retaliated against some of those trying to visit Brazil, including LDS missionaries,” Larsen wrote.

Gary Neeleman, Utah’s honorary consul to Brazil, acknowledges that retaliation may motivate some of the delays. But he says the Brazilian bottleneck is caused largely by “bad planning.”

“The new system was not thought out as well as it should have been,” Neeleman said. “There are too few people dealing with the rush of visa applications, which is overwhelming.”

All Utah visas for Brazil have to be issued in Los Angeles, he said, which has half as many personnel as needed. It would be nice to ship some of the applications to less-swamped San Francisco, Neeleman said, but the system doesn’t work that way.

He has suggested that, until the problem is resolved, the LDS Church call its Brazil-bound missionaries not from Utah but from other states such as Idaho, Illinois and Indiana, which don’t have to get their visas through Los Angeles.

The process on both ends is a long one, with dual background checks here and in Brazil, said Heather Barney, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

“There’s not a lot we can do to speed it up,” Barney says.

Neeleman is in contact with Brazilian officials and hopes the process can be streamlined. He is encouraged by the recent appointment of Antonio Patriota as the country’s new foreign minister. Two years ago, Neeleman said, Patriota was in Utah, where he met with LDS leaders and visited Provo’s MTC.

The LDS Church believes the Brazilian visa waiting game soon will end.

The church has “a long, congenial history with Brazil and its people,” spokesman Scott Trotter said, “and we’ll continue to work through the ebb and flow of the visa process.”

But one change may be here to stay: calling Brazilian men on missions as early as age 18.

“The Brazilian educational system doesn’t normally accommodate a two-year deferment as the colleges and universities do in the United States,” Trotter said. “This allows young men to serve missions, fulfill their military obligations and receive higher-level education.”

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© 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune

Asking for fasting & prayers for Brazil visas

So it looks like there are a lot of missionaries heading for Brazil that are having problems getting their visas.  Some missionaries are even ending up in the states for 5+ months before their visas finally come through.  Please add to your prayers and fasting that all the missionaries heading to Brazil will get their visas in time to go directly there.  Thanks!

Visa and Passport Work Update

We got Adam's passport and have been working on the Visa papers.  So much work to do, it is crazy.  We are now just waiting for the notarized copies of Adam's priesthood ordinations and Seminary transcripts.  Also, we have to get a letter from the local police department stating Adam is in good standing in the community.  That was interesting, we went to the Buckley Police Department and they weren't quite sure what to do with us.  Finally, they decided their records person would be the one to handle this and then they said she was on vacation for a week.  That wasn't a very successful trip, oh well, at least almost everything else is done.