MTC First Week

Dear Family,

I thought I would take several minutes and write about our experience at the MTC during this past week.  

We checked in on Monday morning between 10:00 - 11:00 a,m. We received our missionary tags, checked with the travel office about our flight arrangements, and picked up needed items in the Book store.  Afterwards, we had a general orientation meeting to the MTC and then had a break for lunch.  Mom and I walked home trying to get a few more things done before we left.  Thanks to Laura and Amy, they provided us some food or we probably would not have had time to eat each day.  There is so much to do to get ready to leave for 18 months.  Laura and Amy have been angels to us during this period of time.  We went back in the afternoon and began our discussions as a district on how to be an effective missionary.  We studied a shorten version of "Preach my Gospel," watched some vidio presentations and also did some role plays within other district members.  Each day we would work on different things.  During the week, we covered the following areas:

         1- How to present the first discussion (we had to do that the second day

         2- How to talk about the Apostasy to non-members.

         3- Presentations on the Book of Mormon (That was fun)

         4- Presentations on the Plan of Salvation.

Each day we would act as an investigator to someone else and then as a missionary to teach.  They had members of the church come in and act as non-members and have us present messages to them.  We enjoyed that.  One of our investigators was Sister Waldron of the 6th ward in our stake.  Her husband was the bishop in the singles ward when Stephanie attended the singles ward.  After our presentation, we had a nice visit with her for a few minutes.  She was certainly highly complimentary to Stephanie.

On Tuesday evening was a devotional and we had Sister and Elder Ulysses Soares of the Seventy speak to us. As the meeting started, they had all of the senior missionaries stand up and we were honored for making the sacrifice to serve a mission.  Elder Soares and his wife gave nice talks on missionary work and the need to be pure and clean and obedient to mission rules.  I am certain the missionaries here that a lot.

The first three days covered the areas mentioned above.  They then began focusing on how we could activate members of the church.  We then did role playing again as a missionary and as an inactive member.  We were to pick someone we knew that was inactive and then try and be them to the missionaries who were to teach us. That was a very interesting experience.

On Thursday evening, Mom and I went to an evening class and learned about our assignment as Office help.  That was very informative, but we could see that we would have a lot to do upon our arrival in Antofagasta, Chile.  We have three more days of training as office help this coming week and then we will have one day to pack and get ready to leave.  I can tell that things are a lot different than when I was a missionary.  The office help is to do many of things I used to do as a missionary.  I think they want the missionaries teaching the people and doing missionary work and someone else to worry about all of the details that we used to have to do.  I can tell that we will be extremely busy once we arrive.

On Friday, we had a group meeting telling us how we could do a lot of missionary work in the spare time that we had.  WE also had some group pictures taken and then went to our classes.  Again we had visitors come to our classes, who had served a senior mission, and they discussed things they had done on their mission to also spread the gospel.  He asked what we were going to do and we told him we were going to be office help, and he said "well you will not have much time" but if you have any time, here are some things that can be done, talking to everyone else.  When we mention that we are going to be office help, everyone mentions how much work that is going to be.  I remind people that I grew up on a farm and work has always been a part of my life.  Mom never slows down either, so I suspect both of us will be in our element with more things to do than we can get done.  As we have talked to the mission president and his wife, I can tell they really need our help.  Sister Dalton has reminded us a couple of times that they have prayed us there.  I sincerely believe that is where the Lord wanted us to go.  We now get to find out why.

I am not looking forward to our travel day.  I have been on many trips like this before, and they are not very enjoyable, but there is only one way to get to Antofagasta, Chile and that is to have a day like that.  We leave the Salt Lake airport at 2:05 p.m. on Friday, May 29 and fly to Atlanta, Georgia.  I suspect we will arrive there around 9:00 p.m.Georgia time, and leave for Santiago, Chile after midnight, as our flight there is scheduled on the 30th of May.  We arrive in Santiago, Chile at 8:30 a.m. and then depart for Antofagasta at 11:30 a.m.  We make a stop at La Serena (a city where David served when he was on his mission to Chile) and then continue on to Antofagasta, arriving at 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon.  We will then be transferred from the airport to our new home in Antofagasta, Chile.

We love all of you, and will miss seeing you and the grandchildren.  Nevertheless, I have always wanted to go on a mission with Mom.  She is someone who has always given service to others and will be a great support to the Chile Antofagasta mission.  Besides missionary work, I have tinkered with Spanish for many years, and hope to come home speaking fluent Spanish.  If I am to have the opportunity to teach any investigators, I am going to have to know Spanish.  I want to be able to teach non-members about the wonderful Church we all belong to.  I have witnessed many times the change in people who join the church, and see the blessing that it is in their life.  In addition to serving the missionaries and being a support to Mission President and his wife, I want the opportunity to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love,

Mom and Dad