Well, Sister Blickenstaff and I made it all the way through one week of training in the Missionary Training Center. We have one more to go and then we will be experts! Not. With the end of the week, I am no longer serving as the district leader, so I have already had to give up my claim to power and authority. I am trying to cope.
We had a great week and the energy of this place is amazing. There are 2,800 missionaries here and when we all sing a hymn, it raises the roof! The young men and women are amazing. Today we went to church with a group of them from all over the world. Ten of them sang a hymn. They were each from a different country and this was the first time any of them had ever sung in English. I'm pretty sure it was the first time some of them had ever sung in public. They were wonderful. The meeting was translated into 4 languages, and was only one of almost 60 sacrament meetings taking place in various rooms at the Center.
This morning was the All The Cereal You Can Eat breakfast in the cafeteria. At our age, we discovered we could not eat any. They offered a banana for the cereally-challenged and so we did not starve. Other than the cereal, we have had excellent meals, with the only problem being they run them together, about every 5 hours. It seems like all we ever do is eat and carry 10 pounds of books from one place to another.
Starting tomorrow, we have specific training for our particular mission assignment so we are anxious to see if we are any more qualified for that than we are for general missionary service.
One of the leaders at the MTC is a man who was the student body president of San Juan High School when I was a young student there. We have run into him several times. His name is James L. Hacking. Tonight we met his wife and she testified that Blanding, Utah turns out great young men to marry. Sister Blickenstaff concurred, even though she is married to me. The Hackings are speaking at the MTC Fireside a week from tonight, so next week we can report as to the ability of boys from Blanding to deliver sermons.
We had a pleasant diversion for an hour on Friday night. Our friends, Gary and Frances Hume, drove down from Park CIty to "jail break" us out and we had many good laughs. Gary was impressed with our missionary name tag badges. We also saw Aunt Cathie and Uncle Mick that night. Uncle Mick hopes that I am better looking by the time I get back from Northern Ireland.
We received word from our mission president's wife that Jennifer might want to bring a set of measuring cups and spoons so we don't have to guess about any recipes we bring from home. We are metrically-challenged too.
Yesterday, on our Preparation Day, we got special permission to run home to pick up the suit I accidentally left hanging in the closet. We did our laundry while we were there and almost froze to death. It was 51 degrees in the cabin. We turned on a fireplace and Sister Blickenstaff parked herself in a Cabella's Director's Chair in front of the heat. It had snowed several inches recently and winter seems like a nice time to get out of Timber Lakes for a nice break in sunny, warm, rain and wind-free Northern Ireland.
In case you need to know this for your own purchasing purposes, the laptop of choice among senior missionaries is the MacBook. There are also several iPads. Bringing up the rear, would be your trusty Windoze behemoths, weighing in at several pounds over the sanity limit.
We love you all and pray for you too!
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We had a great week . . . except for doing a bunch of role playing (which I don't enjoy in the least bit). Now we're starting another week and we hear that we get to do a whole bunch more role playing. (Oh goody!?!) I'm definitely out of my comfort zone. I guess that's good? That's how we grow, right? This week we start our Church Education System training. We'll learn how to be good teachers in case we get asked to teach Institute.
We attended the MTC 56th Branch today. Got to enjoy the song 'Army of Helaman' sung by missionaries from ten different countries. It was their first time singing in English, and they've only been here a week. It was pretty touching. I also got to sit by two young sister missionaries during Relief Society. One was from Mongolia and the other from Pakistan. This place is SO awesome!!!
Sister Blickenstaff
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