MTC - Day Five, Final Day

It's hard to believe we are trained and ready to go out into the far corners of the world and teach the gospel, but we have completed all the training we're going to get. I got an email from President Jensen last night and he said the red carpet is cleaned and waiting for us to arrive. He also mentioned that the town we will live in was 99 degrees and the humidity was the same. Oh boy!

We picked up our mail and found that our travel plans had been changed. Our first travel leg is to LA at 8:30 PM instead of through San Francisco leaving at 6:45 PM. Glad we checked our MTC mailbox.

No, we're not going to Disney World, but we are going all around the world.

Our MTC District; Lindsay, Ross, Merrill and Jorgensen.

 Elder and Sister Lindsay, serving in the Baguio, Philippines.

 Sister and Elder Ross going to Sapporo, Japan to serve. They both served in Japan on their first mission in their youth.

Sister and elder Jorgensen, going to Nairobi, Kenya to serve.

 Elder and Sister Merrill, going to Ukrane to serve. Elder Merrill's work took him to the Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine a few years ago and he attended the same branch they will live in as a senior missionary couple.

 Our MTC morning trainers, brothers Silitoe and Harmer

MTC Day Four

We had a great presentation on the book of Mormon this morning by Val Judd, who was our branch president in Rochester '74-'75. We saw his office yesterday and had a little reunion catchup time. He shared quotes from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Heber C Kimball and others that shed light on the fact that ZJoseph saw many angles that taught him and showed him all about the Nephite nation. He also shared the quote about the room in the Hill Cumorah with several wagon-loads of plates. He quoted Elder Holland saying the Book of Mormon is a revelation about revelation and the most basic missionary tract of this dispensation. Mnay other interesting points were made about the Book of Mormon that you don't usually think about.

We prepared and taught the second lesson today. Well I should say we taught our second lesson. Our investigator was quite strong willed and wouldn't respond to our questions, but only asked questions. We had to get very bold and direct and she responded somewhat after that, but we still didn't get to the Plan of Salvation the way we prepared. It was a good experience and we learned from it. Reactivation work is on the docket for tomorrow. We got an email from our mission president last night, and among other things he again indicated we would be doing member work, presenting Family Home Evening training with members, active and less active.

 Our afternoon trainers; brother ??? and brother Johnson

A beautiful view!

Timp has more snow on it at this time in the season than ever before. Today there were 80 degree temps and the same is forecast for the next two days. We may begin to see some flooding. Hopefully it will cool down and we will avoid the super heavy runoff and associated flooding.

MTC - Day Three

Today was the BIG day... we taught our first lesson on the Restoration to an investigator and got our Typhiod booster shot. We were in the second group to teach so we had about half-an-hour to prepare our thoughts. We didn't use any of our preparation work in the discussion, but just responded to the investigator's responses to our questions. We were able to teach our investigator to pray and we knelt together and she gave a very moving humble prayer. Our investigator was played by a member of the Church, but she still had tears at the end of our lesson and told us she really had not expected to get emotional, but she was touched by the Spirit.

When we returned to class we talked about what we learned from our teaching experience and started to plan for our next lesson tomorrow. The lesson tomorrow will be focused on the Plan of Salvation... depending on our investigator's responses to our preliminary questions.

 We have four couples in our district. This is a look at our classroom. The couples are going to Kenya, Ukraine, Japan and us to the Philippines.

 A sunny day at the MTC. Today was Ice Cream day at the MTC. You can kind of tell from our smiles.

We finished the day with a little boost... a Typhoid booster shot. We learned that they only last two years and we had our last one three years ago. We're protected now.

The MTC Experience Begins

We entered the MTC today, Monday, May 2, 2011. It was a day of check-in, discussion and lots of breaks. I don't mind the breaks.  Our Typhoid shots expired, so we will get a booster shot on Wednesday. I think we're inoculated against most everything now and we are taking a few extra testimonies in case we lose one or two along the way.

I'm waiting for the Philippines training... sitting in a steam room while teaching the gospel. Maybe they are saving that until tomorrow.

Just in case you missed it... we're going here! Baguio, Philippines.

Flowerbeds in the front of the MTC.

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 Unusual flowering trees are in bloom this week, despite the cold and snow.

 Beautiful flowers and benches inside the MTC.

 There are four and a half boards like this with pictures of all the mission presidents in the world.

 Our mission president, Thomas H. Jensen, second row down, second photo from the right.

 This is the building we have our training classes in each day. It's the same building we have devotional on Tuesday. We also go to the bookstore, cafeteria, and TRC-Training Resource Center. We will have our first teaching experience with a live investigator on Wednesday. Pray for us... no pray for the investigator!

SET APART

Today is the official start of our missionary service. We were set apart by President Ryan Richards and we are now officially Elder and Sister Lindsay again. We each received a beautiful blessing and will work to receive those blessings while serving the people of the Philippines.

We're now prepared to report to the MTC tomorrow and start the training process anew. It's hard to believe how quickly the last few weeks have flown by. We've visited each of our children, brothers and sisters and Mom, and had some special memories together that will last 18 months until we return to be with them once again.