Leaving Home and a New Beginning

We left Page on July 22, and drove to Lehi, UT, to stay with Andrea and family for the weekend. 

Then on Monday morning, we entered the Missionary Training Center (MTC) on the BYU campus in Provo, UT. This photo is of the world map located in the main building at the MTC. Many missionary photos have been taken here. 

They have rooms for the Senior Missionary couples (that is what we are called). Our group for the week is 20 couples and 2 single sisters (ladies). They are going to go all over the world. Examples are: Trinidad, Denmark, Ghana, Hong Kong, North Vietnam, Philippines, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Australia, Mexico, Mongolia, Botswana, and several in the USA. Plus us going to New Zealand. This was called a "small group" Three weeks ago they had 130 people in for training. 

They divided us up into Districts of 4 couples each for the week of Preach My Gospel training. We had young return missionaries as trainers to help us learn what we need to know. They were really fun, and good at helping us feel like we were making progress. Our group are going to Netherlands, Denmark, New Zealand, and Trinidad.

One of the most fun things we did was eat in the cafeteria with 2,500 young missionaries. They have such enthusiasm and energy--and appetites. We would get a plateful of salad and a small main course, and many of them would show up with a couple of overloaded plates. One young man sat beside us with 2 huge bowls of Fruit Loops (for lunch). Lois told him he would never get away with that in her home. He said that he wasn't allowed sugar cereal at his home, so he was going to eat this way for his 2 years away. Then he told us that he was going to Guam. Lois said, "eat up", you will have rice and fish there....

This next week we will get the technical training we need to photograph the records in the New Zealand National Archives. More on that later.

We are so excited to begin this adventure, and are even more sure that this is what we are supposed to be doing in our lives right now.