The Church and Stamps in Russia - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

SoonerCoug · 07-13-2007, 02:59 PM

I spent the last 13 months of my mission in a mission office in Russia. I handled all legal issues with our attorney for 7 of those months. While I was there, the Church lost its tax-exempt status (temporarily) and had to pay a huge fine. Not my fault.

The Russian government was constantly sending FSB (KGB) agents to follow us and they were relentlessly trying to find evidence that we were selling things, making a profit, and not paying taxes. The mission offices in Russia would sell the members everything like scriptures, etc... just like a distribution center.

The Soviets had/have a weird obsession with "stamps." Every organization must have a stamp, and our Church also had a stamp. One time my mom sent me a package and I had to go pick it up at the main post office. They wouldn't give it to me, despite the fact that the name matched my name on my visa and passport, because it was addressed to the me at the mission office and I needed a formal "Church stamp" to retrieve a package that was addressed to me.

Anyway, our attorneys strictly limited our use of "the church stamp," since stamps have such serious legal implications. This hugely complicated our lives, since we often couldn't do very simple things (like picking up a package from mom) without "the stamp."

Some Elders in the Russia Samara issue got the bright idea to use the top of an aspirin bottle (in English) as their stamp, since we were an American organization and most people wouldn't decipher what the "aspirin stamp" said, nor would they notice that the letters were backwards/mirror images of latin letters. After a couple of years of using the aspirin stamp, someone finally noticed, and the Church got slapped with a massive fine and temporarily lost tax exempt status. We could no longer sell members of the Church ANYTHING ever again from our distribution center.

MikeWaters · 07-13-2007, 03:08 PM

like my mission president said, church must be true or the elders would have destroyed it by now.

07-13-2007, 02:59 PM	#1
SoonerCoug Formerly known as MudPhudCoug Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Land of desolation Posts: 2,548	The Church and Stamps in Russia I spent the last 13 months of my mission in a mission office in Russia. I handled all legal issues with our attorney for 7 of those months. While I was there, the Church lost its tax-exempt status (temporarily) and had to pay a huge fine. Not my fault. The Russian government was constantly sending FSB (KGB) agents to follow us and they were relentlessly trying to find evidence that we were selling things, making a profit, and not paying taxes. The mission offices in Russia would sell the members everything like scriptures, etc... just like a distribution center. The Soviets had/have a weird obsession with "stamps." Every organization must have a stamp, and our Church also had a stamp. One time my mom sent me a package and I had to go pick it up at the main post office. They wouldn't give it to me, despite the fact that the name matched my name on my visa and passport, because it was addressed to the me at the mission office and I needed a formal "Church stamp" to retrieve a package that was addressed to me. Anyway, our attorneys strictly limited our use of "the church stamp," since stamps have such serious legal implications. This hugely complicated our lives, since we often couldn't do very simple things (like picking up a package from mom) without "the stamp." Some Elders in the Russia Samara issue got the bright idea to use the top of an aspirin bottle (in English) as their stamp, since we were an American organization and most people wouldn't decipher what the "aspirin stamp" said, nor would they notice that the letters were backwards/mirror images of latin letters. After a couple of years of using the aspirin stamp, someone finally noticed, and the Church got slapped with a massive fine and temporarily lost tax exempt status. We could no longer sell members of the Church ANYTHING ever again from our distribution center. Last edited by SoonerCoug; 07-13-2007 at 03:06 PM.

07-13-2007, 03:08 PM	#2
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	like my mission president said, church must be true or the elders would have destroyed it by now.