We were set apart for our mission Sunday evening, November 25, 2012, by President William Perez and Bishop Dee Gillins.
We left Lewiston, Idaho bright (actually it was in the dark) and early Monday morning and arrived at the Provo MTC with no problems except fatigue.
After a week of intensive missionary training we were tired but happy. We were told that our group of Seniors is the largest to come in at one time so far. There are 126 of us getting trained this week. The picture is the small group of couples in our district. They are the Botts going to Albania, Curtis's going to Australia, and Burks going to Peru. The training consists of learning a principle and then applying it in a practice session with volunteers who come to the MTC to role play someone being taught. It was actually quite fun once we got over the fear of saying the wrong thing. Some of the volunteers really put on a show. I decided I wanted to be the volunteer until we got that chance to role play an investigator on Friday. It takes some skill to stay in character. We have had additional language training in the evenings which this time is fun. I am working one on one with Lisa Jensen, who was my Skype tutor as well. She returned from the Berlin Germany mission about a year ago and just got engaged this last week.
At first I was not enthused about another time in the MTC but it has definitely been worth the review. It is so amazing to me that the Spirit can be so strong in a 'made up' teaching situation. Could it be because the Lord really is interested in this work? It would be nice if this time we actually get to be in some non member teaching situations and we will do all we can to make that happen.
Dave has developed a nasal infection and we had to miss some training today to go to the doctor who gave him something to clear it up and to help with congestion during the flight to Germany. We leave next Wednesday at 4 a.m.
