A New Venue

A few weeks after we decided not to go to Italy, we met with our Stake President. He suggested we consider a full-time mission here in Utah. We would be able to serve, but also be able to live at home. We thought about it for a few days (we didn’t want to rush into anything this time) and decided not to decide. I guess you could say we were too discouraged and disappointed to make a good choice.

A week ago Saturday President Clegg from the Missionary Training Center in Provo asked us to come in for a visit. The next day he asked us to serve in a missionary branch at the MTC. Without thinking, we said yes. We will help the missionaries with their Sunday meetings (they have enough to do without having to prepare lessons and talks for Sunday), we will help with their orientation when they arrive, and we will help them in other ways throughout the week.

As soon as we finished talking to President Clegg, we rushed to church. Marieta was about to be sustained as a Sunday School teacher in our home ward, but President Clegg had asked that she not have another calling. While there I saw our Stake President in the chapel and told him we had accepted the call at the MTC. As I talked with him, I compared the office couple call in Italy to eating Brussels sprouts (good for us, but not something I expected to enjoy), the full-time mission call in Utah to eggplant (again, very good for us, but not something I would usually choose on my own), and the Missionary Training Center to chocolate cake (something I never turn down). He told me he felt very good about recommending us.

We’re so happy to do something we know we will enjoy. I feel a little guilty turning down two very difficult opportunities only to be rewarded with chocolate cake. We get to work together much of the time, we can see our grandkids almost whenever we want to see them, and we still have plenty of time left over to do almost anything we want to do. The call is for 2 to 4 years.

Sunday was our first day. We started by going to a mission conference in the morning. It was an incredible sight to see 2,000 young men and women in one room committed to taking the Gospel to all the world. They were beautiful and reverent and serious about what they were doing. After the conference we went to a fast and testimony meeting. We are assigned to the 38th branch (there are a total of 57 branches at the MTC). The missionaries are organized into districts of about 8 missionaries each, and into branches of 3 to 5 districts. Our branch has 3 districts now, and a 4th will arrive on Wednesday. The missionaries in our branch all go to Spanish-speaking countries, so prayers and hymns are in Spanish. Marieta knows just enough Spanish to understand the prayers and pronounce the words correctly when she sings. The talks are in English. We stayed for district meetings after the testimony meeting. We enjoyed every minute.

At any one time, the MTC has between 1,400 and 2,800 missionaries. Over 20,000 new missionaries come each year for 3, 8, or 12 weeks of training. Those going to English-speaking missions stay for 3 weeks, most learning a foreign language stay for 8 weeks, and those learning a few harder-to-learn languages stay for 12. Approximately 50 languages are taught in the Provo MTC. The missionaries in our branch stay 8 weeks. There are other MTCs around the world, but none are as large as the one in Provo.

I’m not sure why we can have the dessert before the vegetables, but we’re very grateful.