Thursday and Friday MTC training

Well, we made it through the training and I must say we are both sorry it is over.  What a great week we have had...life changing experiences daily. I loved our teachers, fellow students, leaders and though I was not excited about role play exercises, I have to admit that they were very effective and gave us some valuable insight into our roles as missionaries. Did I say this was AWESOME? It's worth saying again.

Chapel next door to MTC used for Senior Couples Training

Slide show about the Savior

Thursday, we were taught about follow-up visits with investigators and how important it is to hold them accountable for what they agreed to do on your first visit, i.e. read the B of M and pray about it, go to church on Sunday, etc.  They played a few clips from the "District", some we have already seen, but these were put in the context of what we were learning, i.e. making sure they understand what you are saying, how to be silent at the right times to invoke the Spirit. The way they phrased it was that there are three people in the room: the senior missionary couple (counted as one), the investigator and the Spirit. Sometimes we need to get out of the way so the Spirit can communicate with the investigator. We actually felt the Spirit during this training and know that nothing can happen without that feeling. It was a very powerful lesson for us to learn. We listened to several clips from Elder Holland (one of the 12 apostles) and he is so passionate about missionary work that whatever comes out of his mouth is so powerful. He has been to Africa to talk to the missionaries. I hope he comes again when we are there.  The young woman (Sister Russan) that teaches us in the mornings and the young man (Elder Pearson) who teaches us in the afternoon are so sweet and REAL and full of everything that is good in this world, that we loved being taught by them. Each morning, we met in the chapel for song, prayer and inspirational message. After lunch, we did the same thing before our classes. We heard some inspirational stories from a couple that had served several missions. They told of some pretty big hardships (like no water and the store shelves absent of food because the ships didn't sail during the holidays. This happened on a very small island where they were assigned. The people told them they did not like them and to go home...they did not need the 'white man' to come and tell them what to do. They would go to visit people in their homes and they would chased off by a woman telling them to get off her property...but they would go back again and again and when she asked them why they kept coming back when she told them to not come, they just said that they wanted to say hello, and then they would get on their bikes and ride away. This happened many times until the woman finally asked them in. Another islander let them come in because she said her son told her that he saw a Mormon missionary and he was an old man. She did not believe him, but when she saw the senior couple with missionary badges, she invited them in out of curiosity. She and her husband had eight children. Their whole family joined the church, but her comment afterwards was that her only regret was that she was taught by an old man instead of a good looking missionary. Her son is now serving a mission. We saw photos. Great stuff.

Eating lunch with some new friends going to Cape Verde Africa

Friday (today), we did less-active member role play and learned a lot about how to love them back and how to stick to basic doctrinal principles that they have forgotten or perhaps never learned. In this scenario, we got to play both parts, missionary and less active members. It was very helpful and the important thing we learned is that even while role playing you can still have the Spirit there to guide you. Everyone involved talked about the Spirit being strong while they were doing it. The Lord obviously wants us to learn this and be effective in our missions. We felt his presence this whole week, beside us helping us understand our real role, which is to bring others to Christ. We are happy to help him with this work and will do whatever he wants us to do.

In the afternoon, we were visited by Brother Shumway that has been on four missions with his wife. His wife was not well enough to come. He said not only was she experiencing a bad cold, but now she was also depressed, because visiting the missionaries at the MTC is the highlight of her week. He talked about his mission in Kenya and the wonderful people there. He talked about how hard it was for the Branch President to run the Branch and keep people coming to church. He gave examples of how he and his wife warmed up the people by singing songs and dancing with them. He asked us to all sing "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah". He said he taught it to the children and they loved it. They also liked playing games, so they played 'booga-wooga' and made us all get up and play with him. His point was that we never know what it takes to relate to the African people, so we have to be willing to step out of the box, and that goes for any country we come in contact with.

We hated to say goodbye to the wonderful teachers, leaders and other senior missionary couples that we met. It was a great week.

Below is a photo of Everett wishing he could take a ride, the building where our room was...on the third floor (You are seeing the back), another missionary couple, some excited missionaries coming from the bookstore and post office, some missionaries having a group prayer, the rush of missionaries coming from lunch, missionaries checking with the MTC post office to see if they got any Easter packages (It is right by the elevator that we take to go up to our room...fun).

Elder Kyle...dreaming

Our housing

Fitness Center we had access to

Another fun couple we met

Lots of elders everywhere...always smiling

We saw lots of missionaries in groups learning

Many sisters here too!

Mail call!