Small World

You never know who you'll bump into at MTC.  Here are some familiar faces.  Even though we didn't get Katie Gurney as an instructor in any of our classes, she was in a couple of group sessions.  Katie was the oldest daughter of one of our former Bishop from 33rd Ward.  She watered our plants when we went on vacation when we first moved into the ward.  Now she is just grown up.  Then we met the Robinsons.  They have served 2 missions and currently doing volunteer work at MTC on Thursdays.  Wonderful examples to the rest of us.

Some of our wonderful MTC instructors

MTC wouldn't be MTC without teachers.  Here are 3 of our wonderful instructors, full of enthusiasm, spiritual and with deep faith & testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and His teachings.  The part of presenting lessons were grueling for both Sister Lee and me, but these teachers made it all worthwhile.  These instructors were Sis. Trommlitz, Sis. Monroe, and Sis. Benedicto, from left to right (if I remember correctly).

Double Agents

We found our twins.  Both of us wore nearly identical trench coats.  He saw me wearing mine on the first day we entered MTC so he dug his out of his luggage and wore his on the 2nd day.  Good thing we are serving on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean.  People might have a hard time telling us apart.

MTC Training Buddies

These are the Spears.  Elder & Sister Spear were our companion senior couples for the first week of training.  We practiced presenting lessons to each other.  They are now serving somewhere in state of New York.

MTC Class Break

Here we are with a break between classes at MTC.  We put on our smiling faces in spite of the very grueling classes.  Our first week at MTC was on learning topics from the manual "Preach My Gospel".  The 2nd week was on training to use various software for Mission Office work. 2nd week is only 4 days so that people can leave to go to their missions on Friday morning.  For us it was way early, 2-3 a.m. so we can catch our 6 a.m. flight to LAX.

At the MTC World Map

We found the missionary world map.  It's tradition to point out on the map where you'll be serving.  So here we are pointing to Kagoshima, at the southern tip of the main islands of Japan.  As you can see, it is going to be a very long flight from USA to Japan.

Arrival at Provo MTC

We have been super busy on our mission.  I am now attending to catch up on what's happened ever since we started.

Here we are at Provo Missionary Training Center on December 31, 2018.  Every new missionary get photographed outside when they first arrive.  We had just picked up our welcome packet and about to check into our room.  We remained at MTC for nearly 2 weeks.