Another spiritual day, it was the last time that we will see some of our friends, for those that are going to English speaking, proselyting missions will be leaving tomorrow. It was hard to say goodbye and know that we probably not see them again.
This morning we had big meeting with all of us and then we seperated out all over the MTC to have our one on one with the volunteers, this time the volunteers were "newly baptized members" and we gave them a review of the Atonement and Restoration lessons. It was so touching, the volunteer we were asigned was a young man with cerabal Palsey (sp) who was in an electric wheelchair. He came with a young woman who is his care giver. When Dad asked him to open with prayer it took all of his energy to pray but it was such a beautiful prayer from his heart. I was reminded of all the special people that Jon used to transport.
He said that he wanted to meet with us next week if we were going to be doing any more teaching, but I don't think we will because of our training. This young man (Sam) come in every week and serves as a volunteer.
I gave one of our PickMeUp pens to a widow who is going to Italy; her grandson is having problems with the church and she wants so much to have him back in the church again, I told her of Jon and she said that she would take the pen and everytime she writes with it she will remember not to give up on her grandson.
Wonderful day!

5th day at the MTC

4th Day

We spent most of the day learning how to work with inactives and part-member families. The church has found that seniors have much better results with these people than the younger missionaries.

We had a senior couple that just returned from a mission to Minnesota and before that in an African country that was so dangerous that they couldn't leave or have missionaries come in because the borders were closed.

This couple was great and told us how they had been able to reach so many inactives in Minnesota, so much so that the church sent them back again for another mission.

In the afternoon we had more opportunities to continue learning how to teach inactives and part-member families. Then after this we went to the call center and they showed us how to take calls from all over the United States from those t.v. commercials that the church does for the Book of Mormon.

The last class was with Brother Pinegar who spoke to us about his experiences as a mission president and as a missionary in upper New York. He said that when he was over the London Mission he begged for senior missionaries, but couldn't get any, finally he was able to have 4 sets come and he said they literally turned the mission around by all the fellowshiping and work in the branches. He said that the church cannot fill all the requests for senior missionaries throughout the world.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to some of our dear friends who are going to be proselyting missionaries and do not have to learn a language. It is going to be hard to see them go.

2nd & 3rd Day at the MTC

I screwed up the first time on this so I am trying again, I don't want to let this go or I'll forget it.

Tuesday Bob and I had a great day of learning the first discussion of the Restoration of the Gospel, and in the afternoon each couple was sent to a private area and we had a volunteer come and play an investigator, she was an older sister and Dad really thought she was a non-member and at the end of the discussion he was ready to set up a time to take her to church and have the missionaries visit her, she had to convince him that she was not a non-member.

At lunch yesterday I saw an older gentleman sitting alone so I thought he was waiting for his wife, so I sat across from him and asked he if he was a missionary, because I noticed that his name tag was different, and he said that he worked at the MTC. Soon another man came and sat on the other side of me and Dad on my left with another man next to him. We had a nice conversation and after they left Dad asked if I knew who they were and I told him that they worked at the MTC and he informed me that they were the MTC Presidency and the President sat next to him.

We didn't go home after dinner last night because there was a devotional with Brother Kikuchi from the Quorum of the 70's, we sat in the foyer and read our assignment for today, just before we left to go to the auditorium Bob went to the men's room and saw Brother Kikuchi there and had a very nice visit with him, what a day for meeting people.

The devotional was wonderful, we as seniors have seats in the front and all around are over 1,000 young missionaries; when we all sang "Called to Serve Him", I was overcome with the power of the spirit and cried as did so many of the other seniors. Brother Kikuchi gave a powerful talk and touched every one there by the Spirit. Our Mark knows him and the man that converted him. What a small world.

Today we learned the 2nd disucssion on the Atonement and again this afternoon we had another "investigator", this time he was a lawyer from Provo and he played a Baptist and he was very good and asked questions that a real investigator would ask; Iwas so proud of Dad, he answered every question with a scripture and did it in such a loving and powerful way that the man was touced also. He took our picture and is going to e-mail it to us and we will try and figure out how to post it so you can see us.

I love these senior couples, I am in awe of the far away places that they are going in the world and even though they are a little frightened they have faith that our Heavenly Father will protect them and they are putting their faith in Him.

Today was ice cream day and Dad and I really enjoyed it. The hot fudge is out of this world!

The new missionaries came today, it brought back all the memories of the times we took our boys there, I could feel the ever present tears coming again so we didn't stay to watch.

More teaching tomorrow, what a wonderful, true church we belong to.

2nd & 3rd Day at the MTC

FIRST DAY AT THE MTC

We arrived there about 10:45 and signed in and I finally am wearing a real name tag. We went through orientation and heard from the MTC Mission President and his wife, went to lunch and then met together again to get to know everyone. We had 29 sets of seniors and 3 sets of single sisters.
I was amazed at the many places that these elderly people are being sent to. The Mission President told us that every day they receive calls from Mission Presidents begging for more senior missionaries. It made us feel so needed.
Let me tell you of some of the many places that these seniors are going: West Indies, Borneo,Russia, Congo,Texas,California,Phillipines {sp}, Mexico, New Jersey (where Matt went),Ontario (?), Washington D.C. to National Archives, Nevada, New York,Montana, Salt Lake, Italy, Arizona (to the Native Americans), Tonga, Samoa, Philadelphia, Australia, Ohio, Cambodia, Singapore, VietNam, Germany; to name some of them.
I am so impressed with the faith of these older missionaries to go to some of these very dangerous and far away places.
We were told that the angels are very real and that they are all around us looking out for us, and even more so now that we are on a mission and these angels will also be watching out for our families too and I truly felt it last night as we were set apart and my sons were given such beautiful blessings by their Dad.
What a blessing it is to have such wonderful sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren, crap, I'm going to cry again, so I'll stop. WE ARE SO BLESSED.