El Jueves at the MTC

Well, maybe I should review the week so far.  The last of the last minute items were done on Monday and then we drove to Orem and visited with Doug before entering the MTC at about 10:30. The car was chuck full of luggage and the weather was very cold.  We were both in early stages of colds and came close to calling in sick, but we stuck it out. Then on to classes non stop every day until 8 PM in the evening.  Tuesday evening was a devotional.  Elder Lynn Robbins from the seventy and his wife spoke to us and the group sang christmas carols.  It was a nice experience.  Now Virginia and I are continuing our spanish lessons with the young man who had been tutoring us by phone for the past month.  He is twenty two years old, about 5 ft 8" and a very capable teacher.  He served a mission in Paraguay a couple of years ago and has an extra-ordinary ability to learn languages.  He learned a paraguayan indian dialect enough to perform ordinances etc while on his mission as well as spanish.  We have one more evening with him.  

This week has been all about proselyting.  We probably won't be doing any of that but it has been worthwhile learning all that has been presented.  One of our activities today was to receive calls by telephone from people requesting videos, bibles and books of Mormon from people all over the country.  I talked with three people from Ohio, N.C., and Florida. Virginia also spoke with three people two of them from Missouri.  It was an interesting experience.  

We met a young man working in the bank who had served a mission in Estonia while Carlos and Martha were there.  He said that they did a great humanitarian work while they were there.  It is interesting to discover all the people we know who have been to Ecuador or who have connections in Ecuador.  Larry and Nancy as well as their son Ben have been there.  Devin Rigby served a mission there as did Shawn Brazzell from Reno.  (We also knew his family in Salmon a while ago.)

To walk the halls of the MTC where all of our children have been as well as Heather (Brad's wife), and so many others in our family gives us time to pause and think about all those who have passed thru here bound for all parts of the world.  It is fun to connect with people in our own group here even though we know we probably will never see any of them again.  They are headed for Chile, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Mexico, Washington D.C., New York, and on and on.  There is a special spirit here-a feeling of brotherhood.  It is exciting to be part of it.