Last Saturday in the MTC

We completed all of our training yesterday.  The last two days were spent in Salt Lake City at the Church Office Building where we were inundated with information about the Perpetual Education Fund.  So much to learn in only two days.  We are quite excited to be a part of such a great program though we are still a little unclear of our exact roles.  We have been assured that once there we will receive lots more training by Thembinkosi Mketsi the PEF country coordinator for South Africa.
Today we were able to go to the Provo Temple and spent most of the rest of the day packing.  Getting all our things balanced so our bags do not weigh over 50 lbs is a challenge, but I think that we are there!  It is getting very real that we are actually flying to South Africa in less than two days.  It is just surreal even now.  We have seen other couples that were in our group leave for Malaysia, Taiwan, Milan, Italy, England, France and lots of other places and now we are going.  There are only six of us left of the 52 we started with.  Heck's leave Monday for Zimbabwe.
Notice the new do on the Sister sitting next to me.  She got her hair cut here in the MTC.

Tuesday Devotional

We had the awesome opportunity to attend a devotional where Elder Russell m. Nelson of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, spoke to all the missionaries in training here in the MTC.  He spoke about the basics of good missionary work but perhaps most importantly about being obedient.  He promised that if we will be obedient to the laws of the lands we are in, obedient to the laws of health, and obedient to the mission president, that we would be protected.  That was reassuring, especially to Gaye, because the last hour of today was security training that was designed to keep us safe in countries that are just not that safe.  In South Africa we will stand out because we are white and, though we may try to not look it, we are American and in their minds that equates to money and they want it.  We did learn lots of common sense safeguards to greatly reduce the risk.
Back to Elder Nelson: one other take away message was that when meeting someone for the first time we must elevate them and decrease ourselves--in other words it should be all about them, not us.  He also taught that never forget the basic message We Follow Christ.  It was a wonderful hour.

The MTC

A week has passed in the Mission Training Center and we are pretty tired.  We were up at 6:00 AM each morning and after breakfast at the cafeteria (great food and hard to not overeat) we had classes until usually 4:30 PM with an hour lunch break. We enjoyed it though and met some other wonderful couples.  Wednesday we got news that there was flooding in the Burns area and that it had flooded the bunkhouse and the out buildings but was not yet in the house.  Thursday it had dropped a little and we felt very blessed that it was still safe.  We are so impressed by the young men and women preparing for their missions here.  We have come to realize that Disneyland is NOT the happiest place on earth.  It has to be here in the MTC.  We cannot walk through a door without a young man rushing to hold it open for us.  They are all so polite and considerate and everyone seems so happy.  Tuesday evening we had a fireside were all 2000+ missionaries attended and some hymns were sung in all the various languages of the missionaries.  It did not sound so good musically but it was pretty amazing and incredible.  We are often greeted in the language the young missionaries are learning.

Here are a few of our good friends.  The Hecks, on the left, from Caldwell, ID are going to Zimbabwe and the Fullers on the right, from Newport, CA are going to Milan, Italy.





Next week we begin 3 days of training in teaching youth or young adults in case we have the opportunity to teach seminary or an institute class.  We are then to have two training in Salt Lake City on the Perpetual Education Fund processes.