Letter from the Rostov Mission office

Dear parents of the greatest missionaries in the world,

Some of you have asked about how the Russia/Georgia war has affected us. As you know, we are in the Russian mission closest to Georgia, but generally there has been very little disruption to missionary work in our mission. However, in the neighboring mission of Armenia which takes in Georgia, the missionaries were evacuated to Yerevan, Armenia. They may be returning within several weeks if things stabilize. This includes a missionary couple who were in our mission for about one year before being re-assigned to Georgia before the war broke out.

Right now, the only negatives for our missionaries are a few things President Bush said in support of Georgia that don't sit too well with some of the Russians. So far none or our missionaries have been harassed very much, except for a few isolated verbal threats. As a precaution, and at the advice of the US Embassy in Russia and our Area Presidency, we are temporarily pulling missionaries out of a city that is close to the conflict (Stavropol), even though they were not in any immediate danger, and there were no reported threats upon our missionaries working in that city. The missionaries serving there will be re-assigned to other areas in the mission.

It is different watching the news on TV here (the new stations are owned by the government). It is very one sided, and makes Georgia look like the total bad guy. Watching bits and pieces of the Olympics is also interesting. Russia is understandably highlighted, and there is very little coverage of any person or team unless they are in an event with Russia. We have seen several events that we didn't even know existed in the Olympics.

Speaking of Olympics, it will be interesting to see how this conflict will affect the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi.

Thank you for your continued support of your missionary.

Love,
Elder & Sister Cameron

PS, we will go home on Sept 2nd, and report to our home ward in Las Vegas on Sept 14th. We are going to miss working with these excellent missionaries, but look forward to seeing our family again, especially our granddaughter (only grandchild so far) who was born the day we got out of the MTC. (We got special permission to visit with her for a few days before we boarded the plane to Russia.)