Missionary Training Center

We arrived at the Missionary Training Center after dropping off our trailer in Ephraim at Cassandra's house. It was so nice to visit with her, Melody and Mel's girls on the Saturday before we reported to the MTC. Then on Monday morning, Julie and Aaron, Cass and Mark and their two boys all came up to take us into the MTC.

Unfortunately, they don't have a meeting for the senior couples like they do for the younger missionaries. So we said our goodbyes in the lobby and checked in.

Our week of training was wonderful, to say the least. We were able to attend classes on "Preach My Gospel" and meet some other great senior couples. It was so fun to hear where they were going to be serving. Exciting places like, Latvia and Vanuatu, visitor's centers like Nauvoo and Winter's Quarters. How vast and wide the gospel is being spread, it's awesome.

We also met some absolutely wonderful single sisters who are going out to serve missions in Canada, Germany, and even Riverside, CA. It amazed us that they are so willing and excited to go, learn a new language and have a "new" companion. We are grateful that we have each other as our companion for our entire mission.

On Tuesday evening, Elder Richard G. Hinckley spoke to all of the missionaries about the importance of "a friend, a responsibility, and nourishment by the word". It was so wonderful to hear him quote his father, President Hinckley, on the same topic of retention. "It doesn't do any good to baptise them, if you can't keep them."

We were able to get in six hours of spanish language training. Our teacher Brother Scott Rapp was very energetic and tried to keep us awake, after we had already put in a twelve hour day. The language training is very different for senior missionaries than it is for the younger missionaries. The first two hour class, they give you a peice of paper with a flow chart on it to teach you how to say a prayer The second two hour class, they do the same thing for bearing your testimony. The last two hour class was spent learning how to greet people. The younger missionaries get weeks of intense training on just the language of their mission.

Needless to say, we have a lot to learn.

We enjoyed the time we had to share our experiences with Tom and Dorothy Heers (Don's cousin). We stayed (I should say slept and showered) in their beautiful home and spent our days at the MTC just a block away.

Now it's off to the Great Baton Rouge Louisiana Mission.