FIRST WEEK IN THE MTC

We are officially Senior Missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! We arrived at the MTC on Monday May 8th at 9:45am and started the intake process. They have several local missionaries helping out in this process as we went from station to station. It was very organized. We met most of the other Senior Couples who will be going to our Mission: We will be going to Tohatchi New Mexico!

The Senior Couples have all been extremely friendly. We have already become good friends with many, and have felt a close connection to the Youngs, the Johnsons and the Morris's. The food in the cafeteria is surprisingly delicious! The schedule they have us on is 8am to 9pm with meals being our only breaks.

On the first night we were able to meet with two General Authorities: Elder Echohawk and Elder Arnold. They introduced us to the Native Indian Initiative. The focus of the Initiative is the rising generation of all Native Americans, the Navajo Nation being the largest. We are to concentrate on the youth as well as well as the YSA's and bring them back to activity through the various programs offered within the church. Right now the activity in the church on the Reservation is only 15 to 20%. Some of the programs we will be working with are the Welfare Program, Self-Reliance CES, and Family History. Elder Echohawk gave a PowerPoint presentation that emphasized how the Book of Mormon is especially important for the Laminates. 

We were exhausted at the end of the first day and we still needed to check into our rooms at the Baymont Hotel (they ran out of rooms at the MTC). As we were going back and forth with our bags a hail storm hit which turned to rain and we got soaked! It was nice to finally crawl into bed.Our room at the hotel overlooks the Provo River. It is so relaxing to go out on the Lanai to see and hear the river which is really high right now from the spring runoff.

Our Trainers are amazing! We have learned so much about Preach my Gospel, what we will need to do to assist the FT Elders or Sisters, and what we can do when we meet with the less active.

On Tuesday evening we had the opportunity to listen to a member of the 70; Elder Clayton and his wife speak for a fireside. Ini and I were able to sing the song “Precious Savior” with the FT Elders and Sisters. It was a special spiritual experience that I will treasure forever.

We will need to Name, Number, and Nourish. In other words we will find the lost sheep, get the records corrected, and then nourish them by the spirit! They also taught us of the importance of music and we found out that there are music keyboards from the church available for those wanting to learn how to play hymns on the piano. We also learned that BYU-Hawaii is offering 20 scholarships to the Native Americans. Being Alumni we hope to able to take advantage of this!

On Thursday we called the Full Time Elders in Tohatchi to get a better idea what is currently going on there. We learned that it has been a long time since there has been a Seniorr couple in Tohatchi so no Seminary is being presently taught there. This means we will be starting from scratch!

We were taught how to use the Gospel Library with our Kindles better and how to tag and bookmark key scriptures and quotes. We needed this as our generation can be lacking in this area.

That Evening a couple that has been out on their mission in Kirtland NM, Elder and Sister Chipman, came down and talked to us of their experiences and showed us pictures. It was very interesting and informative!

On Friday we were able teach a short lesson to a sweet Sister from Saratoga Springs. We talked to her for 10 minutes, had 10 minutes to prepare and then delivered a 10 minute lesson. We felt it went well and we hope it helped with some of the concerns she was having.  We were then taught by the Welfare department of the Church. They taught us about the area we would be serving and told us that it was a very poverty ridden area and that those in poverty have very different motivations than we do. We also learned a bit about the gardening program which is in place in many areas and how it has helped the people become more self-sufficient. I really wish I had more experience in starting a garden as it looks like our area has not started this program yet. In some areas they have close to 100 gardens!

We got out early and I bought Ini a new laptop computer for Mother’s day as hers is old and slow and overheats. She will need one on our Mission!