An Addendum

I forgot to mention that the sister missionary who just arrived from the US is from Idaho Falls. Her name is Susan Schaefer. Perhaps some of you know her. She is assigned to our district right now so we will be getting to know her well. Also, the other couple here, who are now our good friends, are Tom and Pat Arave from Blackfoot. So southeastern Idaho is disproportionately well represented in St. Petersburg, Russia. With the arrival of these 9 new missionaries we now have 49 elders and sisters, down from over 80 a year ago. Much of that decline was due to the freeze on sending North Americans here, which has lasted nearly a year but has now been lifted. The problem with the 3-month visa renewal has been somewhat alleviated with the second passport deal I mentioned a while ago. We have many good, dedicated Russian missionaries, but there just aren't enough of them. That is the reason, I feel sure, for wanting to have as many Russian or Ukranian mission presidents in this area as possible. It's really only the couples who have the problem with not being able to communicate with our mission president.