In Exile

Wednesdays on the mission were good days. For a few hours in the afternoon, we were allowed to catch up- do laundry, sleep, go to a museum, whatever. The rest of the week, including Wednesday evenings, we were expected to work. Wednesday evening work often consisted of looking for open podyezd doors and knocking at all of the apartments within, inquiring as to whether or not the residents inside would be interested in hearing our message. As a general rule, they weren't. Missionary work was hard all throughout the former Soviet Union, but in the city of Omsk it was famously difficult. Days and weeks went by without a single spark of interest from anyone, so it was somewhat of a surprise when a thick iron door opened for us on a Wednesday night late in August 2005. Our concealed enthusiasm over the amiability of the old woman who let us in, though, was soon squelched by the incessant drunken ranting of her even older husband.
         "I've heard of Mormons," he belched. "One of the worst sects in the world!" By way of frequent interruptions in our pleasant conversation with his wife, the proud communist informed us that we were all murderers, and filled with hatred for everyone. His wife didn't believe him, but then she didn't really seem to believe us either. We took down her number and told her we'd visit her again when her husband was gone.
         "I liked the part when he said that Lenin was the last true prophet," I said to my assigned companion, walking home. One never feels truly safe walking the streets of cities like Omsk, but always staying in twosomes helps. Also, in the summertime, the high latitude forces the misty Siberian sun to linger in the sky well into the wee hours of the morning. In the winter, of course, quite the opposite is true, but then it's ridiculously cold. Either way, it's all grayscale.
"The city was built almost entirely by prisoners," I was told by a local when I arrived. "The name ‘Omsk' is an acronym for Otdelyonnoye Myesto Ssylky Katerzhnikh- Remote place for the exile of convicts."
         "I didn't know that."
         The best part of Wednesdays was internet time. No matter how refreshing it would have been to sleep during our free time, the prospect of connecting with the outside world was undoubtedly more exciting. There was an honor-system mission rule against viewing different websites, but the emails from friends and family in America usually sufficed for our purposes. No matter how crazy things got in Russia, it was always ok at home. Home was a happy, stable, prosperous place that we wouldn't have believed even existed if not for the emails. People didn't spit on you there.
         We tried out a new internet café on the last day of the month. On the way there, we deftly traversed the mud field separating it from the main road, leaping between concrete slabs and the larger pieces of random debris floating along, having arrived successfully thanks to years of boyhood practice avoiding hot lava carpet. The café itself was inhabited by a dozen lanky teenage boys in black jackets and pointy shoes, scattered throughout the dimly-lit room playing war games and surfing the net. They also desperately longed for some sort of connection to the big world outside of Siberia, and that's why they liked us, even if they didn't show it. We were palpable evidence of elsewhere. We sauntered past them to a sequestered room in the back.
My companion and I were supposed to be the leaders of this little group of 16 missionaries, though I had less actual experience than a number of them. I had been recently promoted, following a successful couple of months in a different part of the city. Looking back, I think I received more praise and respect at the time than I probably deserved. I didn't know anything about making a group of missionaries more obedient or efficient, though, so I just figured I would do my best to be a good outward example for the group, and try not to break too many of the rules.
I don't remember which one of us first logged onto an American news site there in the back room of the club, but it wasn't long before each of our computers unflinchingly gravitated to the same apocalyptic story: "Hurricane Katrina Devastates Southern U.S." Mission rules no longer mattered as together, we pored over dozens of photos of people sitting on rooftops, trapped, and even dying in our own land. We yelled to each other across the room about what we were finding- various articles all confirming that untold dollars in damage was done, and that many lives were lost. Most of the city of New Orleans had been leveled. We actually knew New Orleans. A couple people had been there.
One missionary was noticeably less engulfed by the chaos occurring back home in America. It was Bankston, who had just recently arrived in Omsk, though his reputation preceded him. Elder Dustin Bankston was different from most of us for a lot of reasons. He was one of those guys that gave way too many hugs, and held on too long. Sometimes he would just break out into song, though his voice wasn't particularly rich or pleasant. It was high and whiny-just one of his many weaker, almost feminine tendencies. Russians loved Bankston, but I think he was just like nothing they had ever seen. He seemed less obsessed than the rest of us with preserving American bravado. Maybe it was because he was scheduled to return home in a couple of months and had the experience in dealing with them, or maybe it was because he was a southern man in heart and name.
Bankston lived with his mom and younger sister in a big 19th century mansion on the coast in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. To the rest of us, he was The South. He always said "no, sir" and "yes, ma'am." He even sang in a gospel choir, which is strange for a Mormon. He was full of real stories about crocodiles and fried chicken and trailer homes. His overall best story, though, which we had all heard before, was about how his mom, a respectable local nurse, had gone to Mardi Gras just a couple of years before and bared it all for the MTV cameras. This sort of behavior is also uncharacteristic of Mormons. No, the Bankstons were not shy people. But that day when we found out about the hurricane, he didn't have much to say.
"Bankston, did you hear anything from home?" Unlike the rest of us, he hadn't.

*          *          *

The next day was the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Russia.
"Congratulations," said the mission president on speakerphone the next morning. My companion and I called to inform him of the situation with Bankston and the hurricane, of which he was already aware. We mentioned that Bankston didn't seem overly disturbed by the whole ordeal. He was quiet at the internet café, and later that day he seemed to be in denial over the now-questionable existence of his house.
"It's antebellum!" I heard the reedy voice in my mind. "It survived Hurricane Camille. It can withstand anything."
Had Bankston known that his entire town of 8,000 residents had been leveled, he may not have felt that way. Or, maybe he did know. He was never one to have reservations about showing emotion, though. The president told the two of us to prepare him for the possibility that everything was gone. He said he'd be in contact with Bankston and with us, but it's not like he had heard anything specific himself. It became our job to let our compatriot down gently.
As he did with all assignments requiring empathy, my bald companion turned to me. I knew he'd be insensitive toward Bankston, and he was. At the next missionary meeting, he told him that "it's all gone, man!" Bankston took it with a smile. As was my duty, I tried to comfort my senior elder, telling him that while the Lord does indeed watch out for His servants, it probably would be wise to mentally prepare for the possibility that he no longer had a home, or any personal belongings to speak of. I think everyone in the room knew that that possibility was actually an extreme likelihood, and it scared us all into reflecting on our own peaceful lives back home, but none of us had any sort of experience that would dictate what to say or how to act toward another in such a situation. We sat in silence.
"Hey Bankston, if you need a place to stay for a while, you can live with my family in Utah," came a voice from nearby.
"Yeah, same here. That'd be way cool."
"You're welcome to stay at my place."
At once, the tone in the room changed, and for the time being, we were his family. It would be a privilege to have him in our homes. Even my coldhearted companion offered lodgings with his family in Buffalo. I don't think Bankston was any less likely to take that than any of the more genuine offers, though. I don't think he wanted to be anywhere but Dixie. He smiled proudly as he sang to us about it. I wished there was a song about where I was from.
Bankston's last three months away from home were harder than most missionaries'. A couple of weeks later, his mom got a hold of the mission president. As a nurse, she had been working night and day for the relief effort in a care center up the coast, without any way of contacting her only son. Their antebellum house was destroyed. Some things were salvaged, but in place of the remainder of his possessions, Bankston had a thin insurance check on the way.
Work continued without so much as a missed step. My companion and I tried a couple more times to contact the old lady whose husband had accused us of murder, but he must have gotten to her, because she made up a new excuse each time we called for why she couldn't meet with us. That's how things went most of the time, and each time we brazenly returned to knocking. Though it was only early-to-mid-September, the legendary Siberian winter was already making noticeable advances. The wind pushed through the crooked streets, forcing us to don our heavier coats and hats as we scoured the bleak town for listeners. Of course, all of our warm clothes were Russian-made. If there's one thing they knew how to do right, it was keep out the cold.
A couple of weeks later, I was transferred to the newer and bigger city of Novosibirsk, where I had newer and somewhat bigger responsibilities-but the work never got easier. Bankston was transferred too. For his final assignment, he was sent to the city he'd always wanted to serve in, to train an impressionable new missionary from over the border in Mongolia. As he prepared to board his departing train, scores of Russians gathered to send him off -many more than for most missionaries-and they didn't even know about his connection to the hurricane. Bankston only spent that one month with us in Omsk, but he made it out alive. Eventually, we all did.