Dec. 10th - 15th
We spent our second week at the MTC, not at the MTC. Monday we went to Welfare Square and spent the morning having a tour there. It was wonderful. I had been there before, but it was the first time for Alan. At the end of the tour they give you hot bread made there, with peanut butter and jam made by the church, a piece of cheese and chocolate or regular milk made there too. It was yummy!! Next we went into Salt Lake City to the Joseph Smith Building to have lunch with the Director of the Church Welfare Services Department and his staff. One of them, the man over the church employment services, just happened to be Brother Don Johnson. He and Alan used to play ball together when they were in high school. It was fun to meet him and they had a great reunion. After lunch we went into separate rooms for some one on one training with those who were over our areas of focus. We got back to the MTC in time for dinner at 5:30 and then we were through for the day.
They have now moved the senior missionaries over to the church that is just through the parking lot from the MTC. There are 3 wards that meet in that building, so every morning at 7:00 a crew of young workers goes in and sets it up for the day. The front lobbies become offices for the senior missionary coordinators who used to have lovely offices in the MTC. They are now carrying everything they need around in those big plastic totes. The technical crew comes over and sets up computers for the offices and the class rooms that use them. By 8:00 we are ready to begin. Our classes go from 8:00 to 12:00 with lunch in the cultural hall and then from 1:00 until 4:00 or 4:30. By 4:30 the computers and tables are being taken down, the offices equipment is stored in one room that can be locked and the church is set back up so the wards can come in and use them at night. It was amazing to watch and exhausting. They have no idea how long it will be like this but by January the influx of missionaries will start to happen. They expect 2,000 new sister missionaries here by February and then to triple the number of missionaries here by April. It’s kind of controlled chaos right now.
Everyday this week we had presenters who came down from Salt Lake to teach us how to use the computer programs and to explain a little about what kinds of things we might be doing. They keep telling us it is between us and the Lord what work we will do in Tonga. We are to meet the people and then pray for guidance about what the Lord wants to happen there. No pressure there!! Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent talking about the different projects that the church supports and how to find partners in our country to help us implement them if that is what we decide to do. It was very interesting and a little bit intimidating. We sure hope we can do all this. It is for sure that we can’t do it on our own, but with the Lord’s help miracles are possible.
There is only one other couple here this week that is going on a humanitarian mission. Elder and Sister Madsen. We were hoping that they were related to Mike, but we couldn’t find a connection except that he was a Jag Attorney for the Army too. He served his mission in France and then went back as the Mission President. He is fluent in French and they have been assigned to open up Morocco. They will try to establish relations with the government and do some humanitarian projects in the country to try to bring the church out of obscurity there. They are not allowed to mention the church or wear name tags. They can’t even represent LDS Charities. It will be called Deseret Charities there. They will have to walk a delicate line but they are amazing people and they will be fabulous. We felt privileged to be trained with them.
We finished early on Thursday and headed for home. We had planned to see Zach on our way home because it was his birthday, but he was still in school. We dropped his card off on the way home and we were able to make it home by 6:00. Alisha fixed us a wonderful dinner and then we popped in on Lori’s dance review, which was soooo cute!! She did great! It was fun to see the family again, even for just a minute. We did a couple of loads of wash and headed straight to bed. We were exhausted!!
Friday and Saturday were spent running some last minute errands and changing the winter clothes we had used in Provo for the summer clothes we will need in Tonga. We went to the ward Christmas
Breakfast on Saturday morning and said our last good-byes to our neighbors and friends. Then spent the afternoon packing and weighing our suitcases 500 times to make sure they were right at 50 lbs.
