LDS Church Stops Russian Mission Calls

I don’t think this decision affects missions like the three in Ukraine and the Baltic mission (where I served).

I hope this is only a temporary setback. If not, it will have serious implications for missionary work in Russia once the missionaries from North America already there go home and only native Russians are left.

I have to agree somewhat with KJS, but I would take a broader view. It’s likely that there are more communists on the east coast of the US than in all of Russia right now.

I believe that this is related to many Russian visa issues as well. I am a global immigration attorney and we have nightmares getting people into Russia all the time. The visa quota for the Moscow region for 2008 was reached in May, which means that no more work permits will be issued until January 2009. In fact, today they unoffcially re-opened the Russian visa quota for emergency numbers. In other words, Microsoft, Oracle and other firms complained so they opened more numbers. Here is our firm press release from today announcing the opening of the quota again:

http://pubweb.fdbl.com/news1.nsf/c8abb103352ef95a86256e3100809438/dfc0007dd5d71c018525748200673ac5?OpenDocument.

This is also a problem with India. We’ve all heard of people being sent to India on missions but it is so few that it seems like a rumor. From my job I learned that the church (my firm does not represent the church, just word of mouth) only receives 40 visas per year to India and therefore the numbers are so small. The church relies on non-Indian citizens who descend from Indian parents or ancestors. They qualify for special permits called “Person of Indian Origin” cards. It like you are a citizen without the passport. I think the problem with this is whether the work authorization that comes with this allows missionary work.

Interesting about Russia though and nice to hear if we really are fully staffed there. In Bulgaria our mission rarely topped out at more than 100 and now is somewhat smaller I heard

JDD,

It would be nice, but there isn’t a large enough membership base in Russia to have a stake, let alone a temple, and all of a sudden they can supply seven missions of missionaries? That’s not likely.

More likely the church is trying to get away from the feeling that the LDS church is an “American” church. There are plenty of other countries than the North American ones to supply missionaries to Russia.

There are no where near enough native Russians to supply those missions. Sadly, there probably aren’t even enough European missionaries to supply them unless they sent virtually all Europeans to Russia. Latin Americans and Africans are rarely sent there because, unfortunately, racism there is similar to what America had in the 50s and 60s. The church is definitely a world wide church, but for some reason the large majority of missionaries are still from North America, especially when you aren’t counting Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands.

The native missionaries, as pure as their testimonies are, usually need a non-Russian companion to help them understand how to be a missionary and to teach them doctrine. I’ve known Russian missionaries who still think that we believe in the trinity as taught by the Orthodox church. This is simply because the vast majority of them are new to the by less than 5 years. For some, by the time they go home, they will have been an LDS missionary longer than a non-missionary member of the church. It is difficult when there are areas (which there already are) that Americans can’t serve in because then it is almost entirely Russian missionaries and like I said, their faith is pure, but their common sense about the church and how to be obedient, etc. needs reinforcement.

The reason the church did this (in my opinion… which isn’t worth much other than having recently served in the area) is because of the tremendous difficulty and expenses associated with North Americans serving there (not the cost of living, but the cost of visas and paperwork and lawyers and trips out of the country to renew visas, etc.). Within the last year major problems have developed for LDS missionaries there as a result of A - Political attitude toward the West and B - A strong effort from the Russian Orthodox Church (the primary religion in Russia that is very much involved in the government) to end the success the Church is having there. I know there have also been lots of problems with the mafia and entire missions being forced to not wear their name tags or even proselyting clothes for weeks at a time.

I don’t think this is a permanent change… perhaps just for a year or so until things cool down a little.

If anything, it should ignite the faith and motivation of the missionaries when they get to return and also the support of the members. I could see the members taking it upon themselves to take charge of the missionary work, which would be a complete miracle. The missions where the members are the primary driving force behind bringing to converts to the church (when they do the finding and fellowshipping and offer their home as a place for missionaries to teach) are the missions that have the most baptisms and highest retention rates.

I’m just bummed because I was really looking forward to applying for a Russian teaching position at the MTC.

The membership in Russia is very small and it has been called a pioneering mission so I would be surprised to learn that they have enough native missionaries to carry on the work without the help of missionaries from other parts of the world. At this point they don’t have any wards, only branches. We have a relative serving in Russia and not only is it difficult to get a visa and a letter of invitation from Russia, every 3 months the church has to send every missionary who received a visa prior to late October 2007 out of the country in order to renew them. Those who received them after that date; as I understand it (unless the rules have changed) don’t have to renew as often. As you can imagine this can become not only very expensive but disruptive to the work. It also causes a burden to the countries who have been willing (so far) to do the work of renewing all of these visas. My opinion for what it is worth is that it’s a visa problem.

I was a missionary in Moscow in 2003 when the Area President Douglas Callister said in January before a zone conference of missionaries he said roughly the following:

“I want to share with you how I see the work progressing in Russia. The day will come when there will be very few American and Canadians serving missions in this land if any at all. The few who do will see it as a great privilege. I cannot tell whether the need will come from political pressures like another Cold War or just that the Russian saints will be able to stand on their own. I just know that we need to do our missionary work in such a way to prepare for the absence of North Americans.”

That was in January 2003.

Everybody just needs to have faith! Russia is an amazing place! The Lord’s elect are there and the work will move forward! Brigham Young said, “When ya kick the Mormans…Ya always kick em up the stairs.” Everything will work out.

Jared is right on track. I was a little saddened to hear the news and hope that the church will have the support it needs there. I am not worried about Moscow and the larger branches so much as the smaller cities that only had branches of 30 or so members. In those branches the leadership usually consisted of the missionaries. Most of the Elders when I served in 2002 and 2003 were from America and Canada. When I first started my mission, we were only required to leave the country once a year - we would usually leave to Finland or the Baltic States to renew our visas at our year mark. Towards the end of 2003 missionaries had to start renewing every 6 months. I can’t imagine having to leave the country every 3 months, especially for missionaries in the center of the largest country in the world. While I was there they had already cut down the number of missionaries serving in Russia. My mission went down to about 75 missionaries (from over 100).