Random tips

Hello again, lovelies.
Here are some tips I have from my experiences so far or from what others have told me. Some apply to only Sisters and some apply to both Sisters and Elders. I may have a couple for Elders as well (I helped an ex boyfriend get ready for his mission)

Passport:
-You have a certain date where you have to send in a copy of your passport to the mission travel office. DO NOT PUT THIS OFF. Get your passport as soon as you possibly can. My passport was expedited and took two weeks to get here rather than the usual expedited timeframe. It would be unfortunate to send it in late to the mission travel office. Your departure date could actually be pushed to a further date if you do not get it in.
-Don't print out the passport forms front and back. They will make you redo the whole thing.
-Bring as many forms of ID as you can. I brought my valid certificate of live birth and my driving permit. The guy still wanted another photo ID (this usually never happens, and I am still not sure why it did.) but luckily that day I had other forms of ID on me. Bring as much as you can just in case.
-know your social security number.
-passport pictures are more expensive at the post office. I got mine done at Costco. They gave me 4 pictures and it only cost 5 dollars. At the post office, it was something like one photo for 15 bucks or something like that. Costco is your best bet.

Packing:
-bring a collapsible duffel bag because you are probably going to have more things to cart around for transfers. I know when I get to Russia I will have extras like my winter coat, winter boots, and long underwear.
-Space bags! If you're worried about your clothes fitting in with your incidentals or shoes, buy space bags. With my boyfriend, he was going to Canada and had to bring his winter coat and all his clothes and all his winter stuff. So we bought him some space bags. They work really well and you can just squeeze the air out. You don't need a vacuum. They're less than 20 dollars at Walmart.
-If you can, take all your incidentals (IE: toothpaste, deodorant, makeup, etc.) out of the boxes. Put them in Ziploc bags. This will save a lot more space.
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Clothes:
-Elders: Trust me, iron your shirts and suits BEFORE you pack them. And fold EVERYTHING neatly. You don't want to show up to the MTC with wrinkled clothes. Especially because you only get one day a week for laundry and you won't have a lot of time to iron.
-Sisters: make sure you can do a lot of combinations with your clothes and that different things work together. The more combinations you have, the better off you'll probably be.
-Make sure your shoes match your outfits... so far I only have two pairs of brown shoes. So obviously I need to buy black shoes.


Misc:
-Go to the temple early if you can. Don't wait until one month before your mission. I got my endowments out about two months before and so far it has richly blessed me. Russia doesn't have any temples, so I may not get to go much if at all. Even if youre going to live close to a temple, it never hurts to seek blessings! :)
-Watch all the episodes of the district. Seriously, it helps. And it's so interesting (to me anyway) and spiritual. It made me really excited about my mission!

That's all I have so far. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head at the moment. Leave comments below or questions below. I will do my best to answer them.