Week of 20240225 - Our First Week at the Provo Missionary Training Center
= Sunday, we spotted four deer on the Missionary Training Center (MTC) campus even though this is a downtown location in a sprawling city (Provo, Utah) between a mountain and a lake. Today was very busy: Sacrament; Elders Quorum and Relief Society; two hours of personal study, sharing the feelings that came from that; choir practice with more than 300 people; and a devotional: learning your identity and purpose and understanding the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
= Monday was the least-busy day. We got our passports back, received ministerial certificates and prescription slips for doxycycline [for malaria], took pictures as a group and together, met our instructors for the week, saw murals, and reviewed MTC policies with the branch presidency. My favorite photos in the intake building: men standing with axes, ready to ward off alligators during a baptism; a person being baptized in a hole in thick ice.
= Tuesday lessons were built around seeking to understand and preparing to teach. Midday, we met with another missionary couple. They shared their hopes and concerns; we shared ours. We each had the assignment to give a lesson tomorrow to help with the other couple's concerns. In the evening, we sang with the choir and attended a devotional where a member of the presidency of the Seventy, Paul V Johnson, spoke. Then we stayed up late, preparing a lesson together.
= Wednesday, our class looked at the murals in the language building again. They are backlit and so large that it's hard to back up enough to capture the whole mural with a standard camera lens; the opposite wall is too close. The hallways also have photos of missionaries interacting with people. We dove into preparation to teach. We taught "our" couple and they taught us. We received the time and place of an assignment to teach an individual who has expressed curiosity about the church. We attended an experience about the character of Christ: We saw sections of a talk by Elder Bednar on the subject. That was followed by a sister who, in person, painfully related how her life had repeatedly fallen apart in cycles and how it had finally come together. A brother related (from his power chair) how he (now paralyzed from the neck down) had fewer challenges than some others, whose challenges you don't see.
= Thursday, we learned about helping people keep commitments. A couple presented a powerful workshop to help couples communicate with each other better as they work together almost continuously in their new role. Humorous plaque: "Change is good; you go first". Back in class, there was an emphasis on measuring your success by your commitment, not by outward results. We met with "our" couple to exchange feedback about our teaching efforts. In the evening, Stephanie created a blog: The Ladner Archives [this blog]. We'll add photos to that instead of relying on email.
= Friday, we took a survey. We met with "our" couple again to just have some fun time together. We received security training: give the crook a throwaway wallet with some cash; the church has a good record of handling kidnappings; avoid protests and inciting anger.
= Saturday, it started to snow. After supper, we did laundry. Steph published our first post to the blog.
= In general, cold weather was trying to get in its last licks before we departed for 90-degree heat: Provo, Utah, was often in the 20s. We often felt congested. The food was so good that [over both weeks] I gained back the weight I had lost while emptying the house. The missionary couples in our small group and many of the ladies and couples starting this week at the MTC had been on missions already; we felt like kids compared to them.
Deer on campus
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