Missionary Training Center

In front of the Provo Temple with Max and Ethan

Melissa drove us down to Provo and we met Mark and his family at the Provo Temple.  We took some pictures and were able to visit for a few minutes.  Of course, we checked in at just at the 11:00 time, which was the cut off time.  Although we found there were a few others because of travel arrangements that checked in even after that.  Melissa drove us right to the building where we were to stay to drop off our luggage where some Elders met us and took all of our bags to our room, and then back to say goodbye at the front door. This process of checking in runs just like clockwork.   It is so efficient, I guess that since they do it every Monday morning it should be.

It is quite cold here and I was thankful that Melissa gave me a nice wool coat to use.  It has been wonderful.  The temperature has been in the teens  and colder ever since we arrived.  We are getting ready to leave the outside world and enter forth to learn all the things that we will be doing for the next 18 months.

The afternoon was spent in classes giving us additional materials and information on what we would be doing while at the MTC. We had a presentation on what our purpose is as a missionary. We were able to introduce ourselves and tell where we would serve and what our primary assignment would be.  There are 27 couples and 4 single sisters in our group.  We have people going all over the world such as Guam, Samoa, Tonga, Philippines, Hawaii, South Caroline, Salt Lake, Spain, Argentina, Cambodia, Korea, Texas, Germany, West Indies, Toronto, Norway, Georgia, Budapest, California, Switzerland,  Bolivia, India, and New Zealand.  And all of them doing a variety of things.  Quite a few will be doing CES like us, and others will do humanitarian, office, PEF, family history, medical, and military relations. We have been organized into 8 different districts with about 3 other couples who we will be with for all of our class time on instruction and teaching practice.

 Just thought that it would be cool to take a picture in front of the famous world map that all of our sons have done.  As you can see we are pointing to a little spot somewhere out in that vast Pacific Ocean.  There are about 2500 young Elders and Sisters here and it is really touching to see them.  It is like looking at the army of Helaman.  They are so impressive that we spend a lot of time just observing them wherever we go, especially in the cafeteria. You certainly feel a very strong wonderful spirit everywhere you go here.

We woke to snow on Wednesday morning and it was quite fun going from our apartment to the main building for breakfast.  None of the sidewalks were cleared off and we had very soft snow to walk through.  It snowed for the rest of the day.  As we walked to our different classes we got a taste of this weather.  It was actually kind of nice and it will be the last time we have this type of weather for a year and a half.  It did not snow anymore the rest of the week but it has remained cold and there is ice all around.  The temperature got as low as 2 degrees.  Brrrrr!!  Our picture captured the snow falling.

 

   We had 4 days of intensive training.  The young Elders have about 17 days to do the same thing.  Lots of information to digest and learn in such a short time.  We started the day off with a great lesson on the restoration.  We were then divided into our districts and were introduced to our trainer. A terrific young man with lots of enthusiasm. We taught 2 different 45 lessons to investigators while being videotaped.  We sort of forgot we were being videoed once we got into it. It was a great teaching experience.  Everyday we attend classes from 8:00 am until 4:30 pm and then after dinner there is about three hours where you needed to read and prepare for the next day.  We finished the week just fine and now next week we will be doing a 3 day  training for the CES program of how to teach in the Seminary and Institute program.  We are on a mental and spiritual overload, but it is so GREAT.