And Away We Go!

What a week we have had at the Missionary Training Center (MTC)! WOW, WOW and WOW! It has been an inspirational and amazing experience. We came in last Monday with a group of 107 Senior Missionaries, (53 couples and 1 single sister.)  Some of these couples are going to Malaysia, Cincinnati, New Hampshire, Paraguay, Washington State, Honolulu, Argentina, California, Ecuador, Liberia, Salt Lake City, Milano, South Dakota, Dominican Republic, Chile, London, Central America, Nauvoo, Las Vegas, NV, Scotland-Ireland, Tonga, Asia North Area, Germany, South Africa, Oregon, Vancouver, Panama, Samoa, Tahiti, Kenya, Arizona, Texas, Bulgaria, Tennessee, Missouri and Peru. All over the world! On Wed., 865 young missionaries entered the MTC. The MTC is receiving about 1,000 new missionaries every week. This week there were about 5,000 missionaries on the MTC campuses. It has been so much fun to be with them in the cafeteria and just walking around and listening in as they practice some of the 50+ languages that are taught here.

Our classes, held in English went from 8am – 4:30pm M-F, with lunch and breaks. We had extraordinary teachers, young return missionaries who taught us how to be the best missionaries that we can be. These young instructors were wise and insightful beyond their years. We loved getting acquainted with many of the other couples and most of the couples leave on Monday for their assigned area.

Last Tuesday evening we enjoyed a devotional at the Marriott Center with all of the missionaries. Elder Matthew O. Richardson Second Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency gave a wonderful talk “Eager in my Soul.” It was thrilling to sing the hymns with thousands of eager missionaries.

We were able to have some “down time” and had wonderful dinners and visits with cousins and their families and dear friends from Peru.  We’re excited about this coming week; we’ll be training in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City on the cameras!