There's a reason I made this post separate from the notarized/certified post. Simply because there's some bureaucratic, nonsensical government jargon I needed to explain first.
The most confusing things you'll ever encounter is this concept of getting your paperwork authenticated. In the state of Georgia, there are two different state seals that can authenticate a piece of paper:
1.)The Great Seal
2.)An Apostille
I cannot tell you how many times we went back and forth between the Secretary of State's office & the Church's Travel Office. Let me tell you what happened first, when I called the Secretary of State, I got an automated recording talking about Hague convention & Non-Hague convention countries, and what the requirements are for both. You can imagine the deer in the headlights look that appeared on my face. So I called the Travel Office & asked which one I needed & told them I had no idea what Hague meant or what an Apostille was! They told me that I needed an Apostille.
However, after doing a google search for Brazil, I found that it was a non-Hague convention country, which meant that they only did Great Seals not Apostilles. So I called the Travel Office BACK and told them that Brazil was a non-Hague country and it needed a Great Seal not an Apostille. A lady at the Travel Office told me I needed an Apostille, for sure. So I called the Secretary of State & they told me they don't give out Apostilles for Brazil, they only do Great Seals for Brazil. So after getting teary on the phone, and calling the Travel Office several times I FINALLY found someone who knew what they were talking about, and they told me I did indeed need a Great Seal.
*Deep Breath*
So yeah, it may be different from state to state, but in Georgia, there are certain countries who've agreed to the "Hague Convention" which requires an Apostille Authentication. There are other countries (like Brazil) who are "Non-Hague Convention" country and require the Great Seal Authentication.
SO, if you reside in Georgia, and you get someone at the Travel Office who says you "absolutely need an Apostille for Brazil" & "Does the Secretary of State deal with the Brazilian Embassy on a daily basis?" ask for a supervisor to talk to. Or call back and ask for someone else. You DEFINITELY need a Great Seal. When in doubt, call. If that doesn't work, do what your Secretary of State asks for.
Now, it's incredibly tempting to lose your patience with either the Travel Office or the Secretary of State, especially when they're making you jump through fiery hoops like some circus poodle. But trust me, when you feel like you're beginning to lose your cool, take a deep breath and watch an episode of Doctor Who or How I Met Your Mother. If you don't have time for that, listen to one of your favorite songs, or a funny How it Should Have Ended video on YouTube. Those 3 minutes don't last long, and it'll take your mind off of how frustrating and ridiculous this is.
I bought so much chocolate, ice cream, sour punch straws & Redbox movies than you can shake a stick at, just to get me through that week of getting all this paperwork done.
Before you go down to the S.O.S, I'd make sure you have enough money to do this. Georgia asked for 10$ PER PAGE to get my documents authenticated. Now, when you add up my passport pages, my driver's license, my affidavits, etc, etc, that comes to 100$, which the Travel Office doesn't prepare you for at all. So it was quite a shock when we called and found out that we were gonna have to drop that much cash just to get this stuff passable for Brazil.
If you are in a bind for cash, like I was, or your family has no way of paying for this, like mine did, ask your bishop. The Lord is not gonna prevent you from going on a mission just because of money. That's what tithing's for. That's what President Monson's missionary fund is for. Tell your bishop you need help with this, and he'll pull some strings to get this paperwork done for you. Not to mention, it's tax deductible :)
Hopefully this helped you out a bit, and you have a better idea of what to expect for the next few weeks.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Visa Requirements Part 2: Getting Your Crap Notarized.... and Certified
Alright, now we've gotten most of your paperwork in order, the Travel Office is gonna ask you to get it all notarized.
(NOTE: If you have questions specifically about the seminary documents & attached affidavits there will be a blog post specifically concerning that. This page is just for getting your paperwork notarized & if necessary, certified. See "Seminary Transcripts & Diploma Requirements" for all seminary queries.)
I'm not sure how this works in other states, but Georgia is especially heinous & complicated. After you've rounded up all your paperwork, (I suggest getting a clip and a manila folder to put all of it in one place so you don't lose it in the hustle & bustle of things) you will need to hire a notary to get all this stuff notarized.
This may sound like a more expensive deal than it actually is. The REAL pain in the butt is getting it all authenticated by your state, but we'll get to that later. If you have time, ask a member of you ward if anyone is a public notary, and offer to buy them lunch for doing all of it for you. The clincher is gonna be the clearance letter AND having your Seminary & Institute Representative (or a CURRENT Seminary teacher) to sign the corresponding affidavits AND transcripts while your notary watches him or her sign it. Same thing with the police clearance letter. The notary CANNOT notarize it if he/she doesn't see the signature.
Usually there will be someone in your ward who's a notary, if that doesn't work you can ask your bishop if he knows of anyone. And if that doesn't work, the UPS store actually does notaries for a minimal cost. So you do have options there, it's not hard to find a person who can notarize your paperwork.
I made the unfortunate mistake of having 3 different notaries from 3 different counties. I'll explain why this was a nightmare later, but for now I'll just say, try to keep the same notary if you can or at least have them be from the same county.
Now, in the state of Georgia, you have to get your notarized documents certified by the counties that the notary resides in. I looked at the requirements for other states, and I didn't see anything about that for other states, so you might not have to do that, but CALL the phone number for your Secretary of State just in case!!! It saves you a lot of swear words and a lot of heartache, believe me.
Mistake #3: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CALL IN ADVANCE! I can't tell you how many phone calls I made back & forth between the notaries, the travel office, the police station, back to the travel office, the police station, the S&I Services, the travel office, the Secretary of State, the notaries & back to the Secretary of State! (You think I'm joking... but I'm not.) Have a list of questions you've written down, specifically about getting all of this crap notarized & authenticated CORRECTLY.
This brings me to our next stop, which is getting your crap certified. Now, if you don't live in Georgia, you may not have to do this, but I'm putting this in here just in case. If you live in a stupid state, like I do, they're gonna make you go to the Superior Clerk office in the Justice Building of every county of every notary you used to get your notarized documents certified, before they can be authenticated. (Like I said before, TRY to get 1 notary to notarize your paperwork, or at least notaries from the same county.)
So, lets say you have 3 different notaries from 3 different counties. Notary A is from Eff County, Notary B is from My County, and Notary C is from Life County. This means, that you have to take your documents from each county, go to each of the county's court houses & Superior Clerk & have someone certify the notaries you used. Yeah. It sucks. I know. You will also have to pay a small fee for this too, maybe 2 or 3$ for each paper, it's not too bad.
Okay, so you have all your paperwork notarized & (if necessary) certified! Now we'll move on to the next ordeal, which is getting your paperwork authenticated.
(NOTE: If you have questions specifically about the seminary documents & attached affidavits there will be a blog post specifically concerning that. This page is just for getting your paperwork notarized & if necessary, certified. See "Seminary Transcripts & Diploma Requirements" for all seminary queries.)
I'm not sure how this works in other states, but Georgia is especially heinous & complicated. After you've rounded up all your paperwork, (I suggest getting a clip and a manila folder to put all of it in one place so you don't lose it in the hustle & bustle of things) you will need to hire a notary to get all this stuff notarized.
This may sound like a more expensive deal than it actually is. The REAL pain in the butt is getting it all authenticated by your state, but we'll get to that later. If you have time, ask a member of you ward if anyone is a public notary, and offer to buy them lunch for doing all of it for you. The clincher is gonna be the clearance letter AND having your Seminary & Institute Representative (or a CURRENT Seminary teacher) to sign the corresponding affidavits AND transcripts while your notary watches him or her sign it. Same thing with the police clearance letter. The notary CANNOT notarize it if he/she doesn't see the signature.
Usually there will be someone in your ward who's a notary, if that doesn't work you can ask your bishop if he knows of anyone. And if that doesn't work, the UPS store actually does notaries for a minimal cost. So you do have options there, it's not hard to find a person who can notarize your paperwork.
I made the unfortunate mistake of having 3 different notaries from 3 different counties. I'll explain why this was a nightmare later, but for now I'll just say, try to keep the same notary if you can or at least have them be from the same county.
Now, in the state of Georgia, you have to get your notarized documents certified by the counties that the notary resides in. I looked at the requirements for other states, and I didn't see anything about that for other states, so you might not have to do that, but CALL the phone number for your Secretary of State just in case!!! It saves you a lot of swear words and a lot of heartache, believe me.
Mistake #3: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CALL IN ADVANCE! I can't tell you how many phone calls I made back & forth between the notaries, the travel office, the police station, back to the travel office, the police station, the S&I Services, the travel office, the Secretary of State, the notaries & back to the Secretary of State! (You think I'm joking... but I'm not.) Have a list of questions you've written down, specifically about getting all of this crap notarized & authenticated CORRECTLY.
This brings me to our next stop, which is getting your crap certified. Now, if you don't live in Georgia, you may not have to do this, but I'm putting this in here just in case. If you live in a stupid state, like I do, they're gonna make you go to the Superior Clerk office in the Justice Building of every county of every notary you used to get your notarized documents certified, before they can be authenticated. (Like I said before, TRY to get 1 notary to notarize your paperwork, or at least notaries from the same county.)
So, lets say you have 3 different notaries from 3 different counties. Notary A is from Eff County, Notary B is from My County, and Notary C is from Life County. This means, that you have to take your documents from each county, go to each of the county's court houses & Superior Clerk & have someone certify the notaries you used. Yeah. It sucks. I know. You will also have to pay a small fee for this too, maybe 2 or 3$ for each paper, it's not too bad.
Okay, so you have all your paperwork notarized & (if necessary) certified! Now we'll move on to the next ordeal, which is getting your paperwork authenticated.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Visa Requirements Part 1: Getting Your Crap Together
Okay guys, we'll start this journey at the beginning. So you got your mission call to Brazil! The beautiful, gorgeous, unique, exotic country in South America. You're excited, amazed, shocked, anxious and slightly nervous about the up & coming 18-24 months.
So you start clothes shopping, immunizations, going through the To-Do list, and one day you get a package from the Church's travel office about a little thing you may have overlooked... your visa requirements.
Piece of cake right? Maybe you already have a passport, maybe you had a friend or relative go to Chile or Argentina and it was easy-peasy! You have four months to get it done, so it's not gonna be that bad right?
PSYCHE.
The next few weeks will be the most grueling, stressful, stroke-inducing process you will ever go through. Trust me.
Let me go ahead and share with you my experience in the hopes that it will help any other prospective missionaries who've received their call, to avoid the same mistakes I made, and to brace yourselves for the road bumps that are ahead of you.
When I first got my paperwork with the requirements for my visa, I was actually not in the same state. I was living in Utah, preparing to move back to my hometown in Georgia where my mother lived. So by the time I actually got back to Georgia where my paperwork was, it had been about 2 weeks after my requirements had been sitting on the kitchen table.
Mistake #1. Do NOT wait 2 weeks to start on your visa. Guaranteed it will take that long to get all the necessary paperwork together that you'll need. In fact, start gathering things for your passport (if you don't have one already), your seminary transcripts etc. as SOON as your call is opened.
We finally opened and looked at the requirements 5 days before they were due back in Salt Lake at the Church's travel office. We weren't in panic mode yet until we read the entire page (double-sided) and every single hoop we had to jump through for this to all be legitimate. Or at least legitimate enough for the Brazilian government.
They WILL ask you for:
an original birth certificate (which you won't get back), 2 copies of your seminary transcripts, a police clearance letter (which 80% of police stations have no idea what that is, so if they give you a hard time just ask for a background check/history), 2 copies of your seminary graduation diplomas, every single copy of the inside of your passport (no I'm not kidding), 2 copies of a CV (curriculum vitae, that you'll have to create which proves that you attended church through out your life starting from primary till Relief Society or Priesthood in addition to any schooling you've received etc.), a copy of your driver's license, an A Briggs Letter (which they'll send you & you'll sign), and an Indian Letter (which they'll send you & you'll sign).
Now if that wasn't a tall order in & of itself, here's where it gets complicated. I was 23 by the time I got my mission call, meaning that it had been several years since I'd graduated from seminary. I had NO idea what the heck I'd done with my graduation diploma & I didn't remember EVER getting a "seminary transcript" so like any other normal person, I went to the Church's CES and the Seminary & Institute websites [seminary.lds.org or si.lds.org]. which proved to be the most useless website ever in existence, as there wasn't a single link to requesting your seminary transcripts or anything like unto it. (I'm not a huge fan of Church websites, lds.org & all of their sister sites are the most UNuser-friendly sites on the planet)
I finally found one copy of my seminary graduation diploma but as the paperwork stated, I needed two. Both my sister and I googled seminary transcripts/diplomas and nothing came up. Not on the seminary website or lds.org. Luckily my sister AND my mother had contacts in the church's seminary program, and after several frantic phone calls & emails we finally got a hold of someone who sent us an email with an attached PDF copy of my seminary graduation diploma and a copy of my seminary transcripts that I just ended up making 2 prints of.
(To request a copy of your seminary transcripts and/or graduation diploma contact the Information Services for Seminaries & Institutes at 801-240-0540 & tell them you need a copy of your transcript or graduation certificate)
If your diplomas look different, as mine did, you need to make sure they look IDENTICAL. I thought I was okay, since both mine were different, but as it turns out they do need to match. Make sure that the person you get a hold of at the Seminaries & Institute Office gets you two copies of the same Seminary Diploma.
Start on your passport ASAP if you don't have one already. In fact, I'd say if you're putting your papers in now, to start on it now, just in case. It's always good to have a passport handy just in case, even if you're not planning on leaving the country, it is good to have an additional form of ID. And in case you need to leave the country in a hurry.
Now, moving onto your next misadventure. Your clearance letter is probably gonna be the most tricky to get (at least for me it was). Since I live in one of the bottom 5 most intelligent states in the country, I had to explain to 3 different police stations and several members of Georgia's Finest, what exactly a police clearance letter is. Basically, if you remember the report cards you'd get in elementary and middle school that told your parents how good/bad your behavior was? This is a grown up version of that. It's basically telling Brazil that you don't have any criminal history and that you have "good behavior" or "good conduct."
Now I'm sure in other states, you may not have a problem with your police departments in explaining this document to them, but I sure as heckfire had a hard time in my state. I went to 3 different counties and this didn't ring a bell to ANY of them. Me & my sister called the Church's Travel Office (which I'm sure you'll be doing a lot of, so go ahead and add their number into your phone right now) and told them that none of these people knew what this was. They finally told us a background check will do, but that it was easier to ask for a clearance letter than a background check. Cause you know, businesses and colleges and major corporations always ask for clearance letters. They never ask for background checks! -_-
Anyway, we finally ended up just asking for a background check which ended up looking and being a clearance letter. Apparently, "clearance letter" is just a fancy phrase for background check. Just make sure it's official, on a piece of paper with the police letterhead at the top. Now, this was the second time around doing this. The first time I asked for one at the Atlanta Police Department, a sweet lil old lady said they could do it but because of the notary situation (which is a fun thing I'll talk about in the next blog entry!) we had to do it another day. The next day when I came in with a notary, there was one dude workin the desk and all of his supervisors were out in training. I asked for a clearance letter, he said they don't do those. So I relented and asked for the background check. He ended up just giving me the background check REQUEST and not the background check. Not only was it the wrong document, but the notary didn't witness him sign it. A lot of these documents have to be notarized (which I'll get to later) and the problem was the notary had to watch the kid sign the background check document for him to notarize it. The secretary guy refused saying "We work with the Brazilian gov't, it doesn't need to be notarized, it's fine blah blah blah, I'm a dirty skank." Okay, he didn't say that, but that's what I was hearing. So we hired a notary to waste 30 minutes of his time, and paid 30$ in total for a useless piece of paper.
Mistake #2. Not getting a person's name in authority. Make sure you take people's names down when you talk to them BEFORE you break out the wallet. I wish I knew the name of the lady who told me they could do notarized police clearance letters from the day before so I could've put the fear of God in this kid to do it right. You sound like you know what you're talking about if you can say, "Well I talked to Anita So-in-so yesterday and she said you guys did clearance letters and that they can be notarized here. I'd like to talk to her." Also, bring the physical paper that has the description of what the clearance letter is so that you can read verbatim what the Church has outlined. If this STILL doesn't sound familiar, google police clearance letter and print out a copy for them to actually see. If this still doesn't work, ask to speak to a supervisor & keep pestering them until you get someone who knows what they're talking about.
So you start clothes shopping, immunizations, going through the To-Do list, and one day you get a package from the Church's travel office about a little thing you may have overlooked... your visa requirements.
Piece of cake right? Maybe you already have a passport, maybe you had a friend or relative go to Chile or Argentina and it was easy-peasy! You have four months to get it done, so it's not gonna be that bad right?
PSYCHE.
The next few weeks will be the most grueling, stressful, stroke-inducing process you will ever go through. Trust me.
Let me go ahead and share with you my experience in the hopes that it will help any other prospective missionaries who've received their call, to avoid the same mistakes I made, and to brace yourselves for the road bumps that are ahead of you.
When I first got my paperwork with the requirements for my visa, I was actually not in the same state. I was living in Utah, preparing to move back to my hometown in Georgia where my mother lived. So by the time I actually got back to Georgia where my paperwork was, it had been about 2 weeks after my requirements had been sitting on the kitchen table.
Mistake #1. Do NOT wait 2 weeks to start on your visa. Guaranteed it will take that long to get all the necessary paperwork together that you'll need. In fact, start gathering things for your passport (if you don't have one already), your seminary transcripts etc. as SOON as your call is opened.
We finally opened and looked at the requirements 5 days before they were due back in Salt Lake at the Church's travel office. We weren't in panic mode yet until we read the entire page (double-sided) and every single hoop we had to jump through for this to all be legitimate. Or at least legitimate enough for the Brazilian government.
They WILL ask you for:
an original birth certificate (which you won't get back), 2 copies of your seminary transcripts, a police clearance letter (which 80% of police stations have no idea what that is, so if they give you a hard time just ask for a background check/history), 2 copies of your seminary graduation diplomas, every single copy of the inside of your passport (no I'm not kidding), 2 copies of a CV (curriculum vitae, that you'll have to create which proves that you attended church through out your life starting from primary till Relief Society or Priesthood in addition to any schooling you've received etc.), a copy of your driver's license, an A Briggs Letter (which they'll send you & you'll sign), and an Indian Letter (which they'll send you & you'll sign).
Now if that wasn't a tall order in & of itself, here's where it gets complicated. I was 23 by the time I got my mission call, meaning that it had been several years since I'd graduated from seminary. I had NO idea what the heck I'd done with my graduation diploma & I didn't remember EVER getting a "seminary transcript" so like any other normal person, I went to the Church's CES and the Seminary & Institute websites [seminary.lds.org or si.lds.org]. which proved to be the most useless website ever in existence, as there wasn't a single link to requesting your seminary transcripts or anything like unto it. (I'm not a huge fan of Church websites, lds.org & all of their sister sites are the most UNuser-friendly sites on the planet)
I finally found one copy of my seminary graduation diploma but as the paperwork stated, I needed two. Both my sister and I googled seminary transcripts/diplomas and nothing came up. Not on the seminary website or lds.org. Luckily my sister AND my mother had contacts in the church's seminary program, and after several frantic phone calls & emails we finally got a hold of someone who sent us an email with an attached PDF copy of my seminary graduation diploma and a copy of my seminary transcripts that I just ended up making 2 prints of.
(To request a copy of your seminary transcripts and/or graduation diploma contact the Information Services for Seminaries & Institutes at 801-240-0540 & tell them you need a copy of your transcript or graduation certificate)
If your diplomas look different, as mine did, you need to make sure they look IDENTICAL. I thought I was okay, since both mine were different, but as it turns out they do need to match. Make sure that the person you get a hold of at the Seminaries & Institute Office gets you two copies of the same Seminary Diploma.
Start on your passport ASAP if you don't have one already. In fact, I'd say if you're putting your papers in now, to start on it now, just in case. It's always good to have a passport handy just in case, even if you're not planning on leaving the country, it is good to have an additional form of ID. And in case you need to leave the country in a hurry.
Now, moving onto your next misadventure. Your clearance letter is probably gonna be the most tricky to get (at least for me it was). Since I live in one of the bottom 5 most intelligent states in the country, I had to explain to 3 different police stations and several members of Georgia's Finest, what exactly a police clearance letter is. Basically, if you remember the report cards you'd get in elementary and middle school that told your parents how good/bad your behavior was? This is a grown up version of that. It's basically telling Brazil that you don't have any criminal history and that you have "good behavior" or "good conduct."
Now I'm sure in other states, you may not have a problem with your police departments in explaining this document to them, but I sure as heckfire had a hard time in my state. I went to 3 different counties and this didn't ring a bell to ANY of them. Me & my sister called the Church's Travel Office (which I'm sure you'll be doing a lot of, so go ahead and add their number into your phone right now) and told them that none of these people knew what this was. They finally told us a background check will do, but that it was easier to ask for a clearance letter than a background check. Cause you know, businesses and colleges and major corporations always ask for clearance letters. They never ask for background checks! -_-
Anyway, we finally ended up just asking for a background check which ended up looking and being a clearance letter. Apparently, "clearance letter" is just a fancy phrase for background check. Just make sure it's official, on a piece of paper with the police letterhead at the top. Now, this was the second time around doing this. The first time I asked for one at the Atlanta Police Department, a sweet lil old lady said they could do it but because of the notary situation (which is a fun thing I'll talk about in the next blog entry!) we had to do it another day. The next day when I came in with a notary, there was one dude workin the desk and all of his supervisors were out in training. I asked for a clearance letter, he said they don't do those. So I relented and asked for the background check. He ended up just giving me the background check REQUEST and not the background check. Not only was it the wrong document, but the notary didn't witness him sign it. A lot of these documents have to be notarized (which I'll get to later) and the problem was the notary had to watch the kid sign the background check document for him to notarize it. The secretary guy refused saying "We work with the Brazilian gov't, it doesn't need to be notarized, it's fine blah blah blah, I'm a dirty skank." Okay, he didn't say that, but that's what I was hearing. So we hired a notary to waste 30 minutes of his time, and paid 30$ in total for a useless piece of paper.
Mistake #2. Not getting a person's name in authority. Make sure you take people's names down when you talk to them BEFORE you break out the wallet. I wish I knew the name of the lady who told me they could do notarized police clearance letters from the day before so I could've put the fear of God in this kid to do it right. You sound like you know what you're talking about if you can say, "Well I talked to Anita So-in-so yesterday and she said you guys did clearance letters and that they can be notarized here. I'd like to talk to her." Also, bring the physical paper that has the description of what the clearance letter is so that you can read verbatim what the Church has outlined. If this STILL doesn't sound familiar, google police clearance letter and print out a copy for them to actually see. If this still doesn't work, ask to speak to a supervisor & keep pestering them until you get someone who knows what they're talking about.
So, now that you have a plan, or most if not all of your paperwork, we'll move on to the next step which is getting all this crap notarized :)
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