We’ve finished our first week at the Missionary Training Center (MTC)! It’s been an interesting (and fun) experience. When we showed up on Monday, we met with all the other “senior” missionaries who were training that week. There were around ninety of us, and we posed for a big group photo:
It’s been really cool seeing all these older couples willing to leave behind their homes, kids, grandkids, and everything else to serve a mission for a year or two. We’ve been able to enjoy lessons and lunches with many of them, getting to know their stories. I was counting how many people told us “surely you’re too young to be serving a senior mission!” but stopped after a while because so many people said it. In truth, we’re probably ten years younger than the next-youngest couple. I guess that makes us the junior seniors. It’s a strange feeling sometimes.
Also on the first day, we received our name tags. That made us feel official.
The MTC is set up sort of like a college campus, and not only do all the buildings look alike (light brown brick) but they have amazing and memorable names like “S1” and “T3”. After a few days we managed to figure out where most of the important buildings are.
It’s tradition to stand in front of the wall-sized world map and point to your mission assignment, so Pepper and I did that.
Every day was filled with classes where we talked about life as a missionary, how to effectively serve and teach people, and the sorts of things we might encounter. We were put into a small group called a “district”– four couples in all– and had most of our classes together. Like us, all of them are assigned to teach classes on their missions, so we have a common purpose. That said, all of us have very different circumstances: one couple is going to Romania where their area of responsibility covers four countries, another will be working in a building dedicated to classes where they’ll have their own private offices, and the last couple will be working to establish a class group in their area. It’s pretty cool to see the wide variety in mission service, even amongst a group with the same “titles”, so to speak.
Probably one of the best things about being at the MTC is seeing a thousand younger missionaries everywhere. They’re attending classes just like we are, although obviously theirs have a slightly different focus. Many are receiving language training for two to five weeks– we met and chatted with young missionaries heading to France, Canada, Suriname, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and a dozen other countries. Of course many others were going to less exotic places like… Indiana. You can definitely sense their excitement, mixed with the nervousness of being away from home for the first time, or being so far from home, or both. I’m inspired by these brave young men and women.
One of the highlights of our week was attending the Taylorsville Temple open house (it’s scheduled to open in two weeks) and seeing our friend and former seminary student there. Sister Hammack is serving her mission in Salt Lake City, and she happened to have an assignment to work at the open house for an afternoon. It’s so awesome to see her working hard and loving her mission service.
It’s been a busy week, to be sure, but also one filled with uplifting, spiritual experiences and a gaggle of new friends. I’m already loving mission life.