Sunday, April 6, 2008






Dear Everyone,

Well, here we are at the MTC and truly enjoying the spirit of the Lord. It has been a marvelous week, but coming to a close as we are leaving on Monday morning for Ft. Lauderdale.

Our first day here we barely had time to check in and we were off to meetings. I am constantly amazed at the young men and women who are here to serve. They are so enthusiastic and many things remind me of when my sons served missions. We are being taught by 23 to 25 years olds – some back from their missions only a year or so, but their knowledge is so vast.. We are part of a group of Senior Missionaries of about 30 couples. They say that they had about 200 young men come in on Wednesday and that is low, because of the time of year it is -- just before school is out. The couple missionaries range from 30 to 50 each week, however, they say the number is going down slightly. I was surprised to see that we were not considered young. Many of the Senior Missionaries are younger than us – some in their early 50’s and some in their 70’s. So I guess we are about in the middle. One couple is serving their 5th mission.

Also, the first day here we went to the mail room, mostly to see where it was. We decided to ask if we had any mail. Brad told the girl at the counter that it was our first day and so we probably didn’t have any mail. We had two letters. One from the MTC Mission President and, of course, one from Claudia. All the missionaries standing around said, “Wow! It was fun!

One day, Brad went back to the apartment to get something we forgot. It was evening and I sat down in a vacant room to play the piano a little. I set my purse down and then forgot it when I left. About 4 hours latter that night, Brad asked me where my purse was because it had a significant amount of money in it. We couldn’t find it. Brad left to go back to the piano and I prayed. He came back with the purse and the money was in it.. Where else but at the MTC!

We had lunch with our Mission President (as of July). He and his wife came to the MTC to eat with us. She was a cheerleader at Ricks when I worked in the Athletic Department and Dad was working with the football team. They were very nice and so excited to be going to Ft. Lauderdale with their 5 children. They were about 45 I would guess.

The food is very good. Lots of fruit, salads, and then of course the greasy stuff too. We eat 3 big meals a day -- something that we are not used to. It is funny to see the young Elders with 4 or 5 glasses of blue, red, and purple punch, and then 2 glasses of milk on their trays.

One day I didn’t feel very well. I have really had a hard time with my neck and joints -- I guess arthritis. I’m not sure why it is acting up so much now. Anyway, I left the meeting at break time, and went to our apartment. I knelt down and prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me because I hurt so much all over and I knew I couldn’t go back to the meeting without help. I got up and went back to the meeting and had one of the best days I have ever had. It always amazes me what the Lord can do when we exercise a little faith..

We have a lot of roll playing. People come to our apartment and pretend to be investigators or new converts and we teach them from “Preach My Gospel.” Of course we have been taught what we should teach, but mostly we are told to teach a topic by the spirit. It was scary at first, but then it was exciting to see how much we really knew and could talk about..

Yesterday, we said goodbye to some of the other couples. It was amazing how close we all got in just a short period of time. We took pictures and laughed and cried a little. It will be sad to go, but we are excited to get going.








2 comments:

Mark&Noelle Taylor said...

WE are so glad you are having such a great time we miss you lots and are excited for when we can come and see you on your vacation(mission)

mama said...

Well, I just think you are the cutest couple down there. Loved to see you "washing clothes" in your suit and Sunday dress --- that would be hard for me to do. The pictures were GREAT and also the news --- I will be watching your blog LOTS --- since I'm on the computer way too much. Love you