Consulate Trip (MTC)

From Aimee: If you remember back in week 2, Michael took a trip to the French Consulate in San Francisco, and said:"We had to wake up at 3 AM in order to make our flight, and the entire trip, things kept almost going wrong. It was a true testament to me that God watches over us when we follow His commandments." I was of course curious what sorts of things could almost go wrong, so asked him for details. He sent a summary today, and I thought his blog readers might enjoy it as well.

To preface this, Murphy’s Law took effect, and it was only countered by the fact that we’re missionaries. Also remember, this was our one week anniversary in the MTC, and they’re already trusting us to go to San Francisco by ourselves. What did they think was going to happen?!

We woke up at 3AM in order to make it to the travel office by 3:45. When Elder Bunker, Elder Gardner, and I got there (at, or probably slightly past 3:45) Elder Birch was nowhere to be found. This was a problem. So we went back to the residence to try and track him down, but to no avail. His door was ajar, but from what we could see in the dark (we didn’t want to wake up his roommates) he wasn’t in there. We checked the bathrooms and anywhere else we could think of, then decided it would be better for one Elder to miss the flight rather than all 4 of us. Of course, when we made it back to the travel office, Elder Birch had taken a different route than us and showed up just after we went looking for him. He later told us how he had fallen back asleep and re-woke up at (I think) 3:43.

Side note, there were 4 sisters going to Canada heading to the airport with us, so we had fun helping them with their luggage. The MTC bused us to the Frontrunner station, from which we took the train system to the airport (much like how I got there during winter break).

On the train ride, we took a closer look at our flight details, and found some conflicting information. The three missionaries in our district (me, Elder Bunker, and Sœur Petersen) were for sure flying Delta, and Elder Birch was flying Alaskan, but the 4 in the Lyon district had two papers, each saying one of these two flights. Needless to say, we had no idea what was going on. It turns out that the 7 of us were all on Delta, and “poor” Elder Birch was on his own flight.

Transferring from the Frontrunner train to the city train thing, Elder Bunker forgot his packet (with his passport, visa application, etc.) on the train. Luckily, Elder Birch grabbed it on his way off. Otherwise, I have no idea what would have happened.

Side note, getting off the train at the airport is where I met Taylor Ballard. He noticed our nametags and started talking to one of the other missionaries, when he mentioned Paris, France and his name, Elder Ballard. I quickly asked, Taylor Ballard from Oregon? And that’s how it went down.

So while we were slightly worried for Elder Birch, leaving him after figuring out the flight situation, there was literally no reason to. As he was checking in for his boarding pass or something, the person working there asked where he was serving. After replying with “Tahiti,” the guy then mentioned how he has family in Tahiti, and since he’s hoping for some extra blessings, decides, “You’re flying first class!” Like I said, no need to worry.

However, when we landed in San Francisco, we knew nothing of this. What we knew was that we planned with Elder Birch to meet him outside his gate, but for some reason, his flight was landing in the International Terminal. That meant we had to exit security to get there, and had to wait outside the terminal, hoping he would come out to meet us. Some of the sisters went to go page him just to make sure he’d come out.

Side note, we met the Head of Security. He came up to talk to us and compliment us for our humanitarian work. Apparently he worked for the military and had to deal with unruly sailors, and was impressed by the MTC he saw there in whatever Pacific area he was stationed in. It was cool to meet a nonmember who was that interested in missionaries, but he seemed disappointed we were going to a first world country like France, since there isn’t any humanitarian work to do there.

Elder Birch finally showed up during the time we were talking, and he came with a friend he made. Apparently she had overheard him talking about heading to Tahiti and mentioned that she was going to serve there too. She introduced herself as Ivy, but she actually just showed up to the MTC on Wednesday, so now she’s an official missionary. I just can’t remember her last name. She was traveling to the Consulate as well. For some reason the Church sent her before she went to the MTC, but not us.

Then we took BART to the Montgomery station, and tried to follow the directions they gave us, but they were surprisingly unhelpful. We were standing on a street corner near where we thought it was supposed to be, but we had no idea where to go from there. Then a couple came up to us to say hi. Turns out they had just been to the Consulate! They kindly took us there so we could drop off Ivy (her appointment was before ours) and then they helped us find a nice place to eat, Super Duper Burger. After lunch we just wandered the streets. This meant walking around the block a couple times.

We showed up at the office building or whatever early for our appointments because we noticed there was a small window for us to get to the airport and make our flight. When we tried to use the elevator, the 6th floor button didn’t work. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong until we talked to the front desk and they told us they were on lunch break until 2. At 2 we could finally press the button and get to the Consulate. Then we had to wait in line. People started worrying and convinced them to take us two at a time, which wasn’t really an issue since they just took our packets and got our fingerprints.

When we finished there was enough time to take BART back to the airport to get to the gate just before they would stop boarding. We hurried back to the station, but at the airport, BART wouldn’t accept our tickets. We were trapped in BART. One of the Sœurs talked to the attendant or whatever and he let us through, luckily.

When we got to the gate, we were shocked to see that the flight was delayed. There was no reason to hurry at all! We also met that couple again, so it was nice to see them and thank them again. Then Ivy showed up a little later. She had taken a wrong train and if the flight hadn’t been delayed, she  probably would have missed the flight.

Unfortunately, the Lyon missionaries’ ticket was voided for some reason. This meant the other 5 of us (including Ivy) left them in San Francisco. When we landed, we luckily had Ivy’s phone to call the travel office and find out what was going on. The missionaries we left also had their travel office provided phone, so that was lucky.

We waited for them in Salt Lake, but Elder Birch realized he left his iPod on the plane, so he had to talk to someone to get back through security so he could retrieve it. We also realized the shuttle may not be coming. Luckily we were in Utah, so it wasn’t hard for a couple of missionaries to borrow a phone. We called and they told us they had called back the shuttle because the missionaries in San Francisco had been stuck, so it would be back when they landed.

Then they all showed up and we were able to make it back to the MTC without further complications. Except that we hadn’t eaten dinner and it was way past lights out. They were kind and let us in the sack lunch room. Then we wrote many pages in our journals that night and got to bed very late. Good times.