2nd Week in MTC

I called our second week in the MTC the "temporal" week. The first week was the spiritual one and the second was the temporal one as we learned how to run a mission office. Both are important; I loved both weeks. I loved how at the beginning of our first day our teacher had a formula for how many hours of proslyting time we were allowing the younger missionaries to do by taking care of all the business of helping to run a mission. It was pretty amazing.

There were only 3 couples in on this training - the picture shows the one from California that was going to Germany (Walters), and the dark haired lady with her husband are the Rapiers, my former stake president and his wife. She and I really bonded as our lives had followed very similar paths. We were close to the same age and I felt a special kinship with her.

We learned all kinds of things - how to get mission referrals and then send them out as a text message to the missionaries so they could be followed up on within 24 hours! All done electronically. We learned how to enter convert baptisms, manage apartments, pay bills, compose mission newsletters, use Microsoft Word and Excel, etc, etc, etc. It was very practical training taken at the pace we wanted to go.

Again, like the first week, most of our teachers were young returned missionaries who were so sweet and positive. They were mostly newly married or engaged to be married, BYU students. One day a senior couple who had returned came in and helped us and we actually had lunch with them that day. They were so helpful, so practical, and answered all our questions to where they gave me a lot of peace of mind. I asked how long it took to adjust being away from family, and the sister said she cried for the first two weeks, then she was fine. Everyone tells us that it's actually harder to leave the mission field to come home than it is to leave home to go out.

I can understand some of this since I see how quickly relationships can be built in such a short period of time, like in the MTC. It was really hard saying good-bye to the other two couples in our training at the end of only 4 days. You develop a special bond very quickly when you are dealing with spiritual matters.

We had a very special testimony meeting at the end, with just the 3 couples and one of our teachers. We were just in our little computer room but the Spirit was so strong and we shared what was in our hearts. Elder Walters shared how he was ready to walk out after the first morning as he has never used computers before. But he stuck with it and learned a lot and he felt more positive at the end. He was such a sweet humble man, always studying his German on the breaks.

We had our last French tutoring lesson with Anthony Betteridge, shown in the picture with us. We've been meeting with him since January and have really grown to love him. He is the sweetest guy! We cried as we said good-bye. He loves the French language and his enthusiasm was contagious.

Of course we had to take a picture in front of the big world map, pointing to our mission! It wouldn't be the MTC without that picture! The elder who took it was from Montana, going to the SLC Sandy mission. His companion was going to New Delhi, India - he was delayed because of the volcano.

It's now late Sunday night. We had a wonderful open house put on by our sweet friends and home teachers, the Ormes. There was a big crowd to wish us well and send us off! We had a really fun time visiting with lots of our dear friends.

We had to say good-bye to our family and that wasn't easy. All those sweet grandkids who are going to be so much bigger when we return. And all those unborn babies that we won't see for a while. I've cried until I feel like I don't have any tears left. Guess we're on our way.