Back to the MTC

 We spent 2 weeks at the MTC.  The first week we had Preach My Gospel training.  Above are our 2 teachers from the morning class.  It is amazing how wonderful these young people are.  They are all returned missionaries and they work at the MTC for their part time job while they attend school.

 We had an awesome group of senior couples called a district that we spent all week with.

 For the afternoon class we had Brother Lystrop.  When we were in the group mtg right after lunch, I looked to the back of the room to see the afternoon teachers.  There amongst them was Elder Lystrop.  He was one of the missionaries that we worked with in Belgium.  Whenever the Dutch speaking Elders had French speaking people to teach, they would call us.  We drive up to Kortrijk, pick up the Elders and go to the appointments.  Sometimes we would just translate.  Often John would teach the lesson and I would translate from French into English so that the missionaries would know what was going on.  Then they could add their own comments.  We had so much fun doing that.  When I saw Elder Lystrop, he in turn noticed me.  He ran over and gave me the biggest hug.  Then he asked what classroom we were in.  I told him room 38.  "Oh no, I'm teaching in room 41."  "Well" I said, "Why don't you ask if you can switch rooms?"  He did just that and they let him switch, so he was our afternoon teacher for the week.  We had lots of fun together.

 This darling couple is from Danville, Ca.  He is taking 6 mos off his job as an accountant so they can serve a little mission.  They will be serving in Washington D.C. MLS missionaries.

 This fun couple is from West Valley Utah.  They will be serving in the Salt Lake City West Mission.  Salt Lake has a brand new mission that has been divided into 3 or 4 sections.  They will be concentrating on working with the less active members.

 This couple is from Hooper, Utah.  They will be serving in Sierra Leone and Liberia.  There mission is humanitarian.  They will be building and digging wells, building outhouses, teaching sanitation, and putting together wheel chairs and teaching the people how to use them.  Because of all the wars and unrest in those countries there are a lot of maimed people who have the need of wheel chairs.   All 3 of these couples were so nice and so much fun.  We had a great time together.
Our 2nd week was office training.  It was very intense and I learned a lot.  Unfortunately I am having to learn a lot of different things out here in the mission field. My trainer at the office, Sister Levitre is awesome and so patient.  My head is trying to remember all the many things that I will have to be doing every day at the office.  It is huge trying to run a mission.  There are so many different things that need to be done.  I hope I will be up to it.

 One day we stopped to see baby Penny on our way home from the MTC.  She is the cutest little baby.

 We think it was very thoughtful of her to be born just before we had to leave so that we could meet our newest great granddaughter.

                                      
 Little Tatum likes being a big sister.

 Grandma Lana with her little granddaughter.  She arrived from Maryland just in time to attend the birth of this sweet baby girl.

                                                                 4 generations

 That friday Andrea arranged a going away dinner for us.  We went to Texas Road House and met up with Marchele, who was visiting from Florida and Trish.

We had a lot of fun talking and talking.  I hadn't seen Marchele for 4 years and so we had lots to catch up on and to talk about.

                       Oh, here is another picture of our MTC teacher.  He is an awesome guy.

 One lunch time we went to the Awful Waffle.  We were supposed to meet up with Jenna, but she had to leave early to study for a test.  Instead we got to see Emma.  It was fun to see her working.  Emma is such a great girl.  She is smart and pretty and has a great attitude.  She and Jenna and I actually had a wonderful "girl time" at my house when they came over for dinner.  We played a game, just the three of us, where we had to answer truth questions that we asked each other.  I loved it and I'm certain the girls enjoyed it too.

 Anyway, we had lunch with Ben Thompson another of our missionaries.  In fact, Elder Lystrop was Elder Thompson's trainer when her first arrived in Belgium.  I remember we had an appointment and Elder Thompson had just barely arrived from the U.S.  He was so tired and so jet lagged.  However, when we asked him if he was up to going to teach, he very quickly said yes.  He was just fine and excited to begin his service.  Well we got in the car and had to drive about 40 minutes to get to the appointment.  We had been driving for just a short, short time when I looked back and Elder Thompson was out.  He was sound asleep.  As soon as the car stopped though, he perked right up and was all set to go.  He was a great missionary.  It was awesome to see him grow from a young, excited young man to a mature grown man.

We had a wonderful, if tiring stay at the MTC.  We worked so hard and learned a lot.  The spirit in that place is indescribable.  Everywhere you go or look there are young missionaries, men and women, full of the spirit, happy, kind, polite, friendly, ready to work.   If only the world were more like that.  If only there were more people who had Christ at the center of their lives.  All of the world's problems would then be solved.