We just got back from the Italian Consulate in Los Angeles, where we applied for our visa. Most of the paperwork had been done by the church missionary travel department and sent to us to present in person. There were two stacks of documents, one for each of us. Yesterday we drove up to LA, first visiting Dee's parents and sister in South Pasadena for few errands and a final farewell. Then we checked into a hotel in west LA near the Consulate and were able to attend the LDS temple in the evening.
The unpleasant surprise/drama came last night when we checked online and found that the Consulate had automatically cancelled our appointment this morning, because we "forgot" to check in between 3 and 10 days before. We had made the appointment in late June, and this was the earliest date they could give us. Somewhere deep in the fine print on the original confirmation email was the fact that we had to confirm in that small time window just before our appointment, but they never sent any reminder or notification that it had been cancelled.
It was panic time! Fervent prayers were offered. The next available slot was in October, long after we are supposed to be in Italy, although one slot did open up on Friday morning, probably due to some poor soul who got cancelled like we did! Because we had no desire to drive up to LA and back again on Friday, we were there when they opened the doors at 9am to plead our case. At first they were a bit gruff ("dumb Americans!"). However, we were listed on their printed appointment sheet as a "cancelled by the system", so we suspect that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Anyway, we filled out some paperwork asking for an exception, and then they got us in almost immediately, before our original appointment time. Everything went smoothly, and we were on our way home before 10am, arriving here in two hours, which is amazing traffic-wise.
They kept our passports and promised to send them to the missionary department next week, along with our visas, making us sign a waiver relieving them of responsibility if the passports get lost. We are uncomfortable not having our documents in hand, so it's a minor worry, but apparently this is common practice.