Week MTC

Janet and I spent this past week, January 15th through January 19th, at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah.  Here we are standing before the large map posted in the main hall in front of the cafeteria.  It is traditional for missionaries to a picture taken of themselves pointing to the area where they will serve. My short arms couldn't quite reach up to France.

Ninety three couples arrived on Monday morning.  This picture was taken Tuesday morning as we waited to hear the announcement of the new First Presidency.  You can see that seniors are like everyone else when they have a minute: out come the cell phones. We were no exception. 

We were assigned to work in small groups called districts. From left to right are  Elder Van Leewuen, our morning instructor, Elder and Sister Purrington, who are going to serve as office missionaries in Fiji, and Elder and Sister Lee, who will serving as office missionaries in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

Sister Luke was our afternoon instructor.  The instructors were all much younger than us, but they had served missions and understood and knew the missionary instruction book, "Teach My Gospel" really well.  Their teaching was filled with the spirit and with love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We learned a lot and enjoyed their teaching.

We got to practice teaching another senior couple, Elder and Sister May, and they got to practice teaching us.  They are going to serve in Paraguay as records preservation missionaries. We got to know them well enough to realize that we have much in common and learned to love them in the short time we had together.

Teaching building, T4, had wonderful wall size murals at both ends of the building on each floor. Here Elder Sumner is visiting with a young Joseph Smith ;-).  The realism of all of the pictures and the fact that they were back-lit on semi transparent screens made them almost seem 3-D.

Our MTC experience was very different from the one we had three and one half years ago, (Except that we still gained at 5 pounds eating the good food). We got to know other senior couples better, but the spirit was still the same. We learned that we need to be bold in sharing our testimonies of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  We were reminded that while in His service, the Lord will bless us with the knowledge and skill we need to serve Him.

Next Monday and Tuesday we have two more days of training specifically for our calling as self-reliance missionaries at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, and then fly to Lyon via Amsterdam on Thursday, January 25th.  We can hardly wait!!