MTC Experience Continues, November 6 - 10, 2023

      Our class work starts at 8 am on day 2 at the MTC.  We have a different teacher in the morning than we have in the afternoon.  Sister Lunt is our amazing morning teacher.

You can see she is pretty tall.  I think she said she was 5' 11" inches tall. 

     After teaching us some concepts out of Preach My Gospel, we had an opportunity to apply what we were taught in a getting to know you activity. We were paired with another couple from a different district where we were told to spend about 30 minutes getting to know each other.  Remember the couple standing next to us in the big group picture in my first post, the sister in the yellow jacket and her husband? That is the couple we were paired with- crazy huh?  Meet the Rollins - Kevin and Susan. They 

are from southern Utah near Brian Head. We found out that it's their second marriage for both of them.  They both have one son from their first marriage.  They own their own business.  While visiting with them, we found out that Elder Rollins son had passed away and they both talked about some spiritual experiences they had at that time that helped them come to terms with that tragic event.  

      In our afternoon class with Sister Barlow and Benson, we learned that with the information we learned about our new friends, we would need to challenge them with a "will you" question, identify and testify of the promised blessings if they accept our "will you " challenge, and share testimony.  Well, all of us in our district were a little dismayed that we were not told this objective before we started the getting to know you activity because we could have been more intentional in our learning things about our couple.  But luckily for us, both Elder Rappleye and I had the same prompting on what we should challenge the Rollins to do. We felt they needed to write down their spiritual experiences they told us about when Elder Rollin's son died and share it with his son's children.  The problem was the "will you" challenge had to be something they could do by the next day. So, we decided to have them commit to a time deadline of when they would have it written down and shared with their grandchildren. 

     After class was over for the day, we skipped dinner and headed to the snack room to grab a quick bite to eat before we had to be at choir rehearsal for the devotional that night.  Class got over at 5pm and we had to be at rehearsal by 5:30pm, so it didn't leave us a lot of time.   When we arrived at the rehearsal, they directed us to fill in the seats from the bottom up, so Sister Rappleye ended up on the second row and Elder Rappleye ended up on the 4th row. We were so excited to find out that we were singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing ", one of our favorite songs.  Elder Rappleye decided to sing baritone. Doesn't he stand with his white hair among all those young Elders! They were all very nice young men and enjoyable to be around.  Sister Rappleye sang 2nd Alto and sat next to a senior sister going to serve in Santa Rosa, CA and a Jr. Sister missionary from Colorado Springs, CO (where we lived for 5 years).  We rehearsed for an hour and then had a short break. After we were back in our seats before the devotional started, they announced that Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf and his wife, Harriet was going to be the speakers for the devotional.  All the young Elders and Sisters let out an excited shout that sounded like they were cheering because the BYU Cougars football team had just scored a touchdown. The excitement was electric. 

We found out the next day that this picture above was in the church news online article.
about the MTC devotional.  Sister Rappleye is on the second row in black next to the other senior missionary that was singing the opening song, "Called to Serve" with gusto. 

     Sister Uchtdorf encouraged the missionaries to be courageous, be kind, be an example, be a light, be temple worthy, have a plan - make the plan of happiness your plan, find joy in serving, and make sure the power of prayer is available to you. 

     Elder Uchtdorf talked about how our missionary name tags are our badge of honor to represent Jesus Christ, and we will succeed because Jesus Christ is our strength. He talked about two attributes of Christ - faith and hope. Faith is a principle of power, it produces miracles. Hope is like an anchor, helps us to press forward, and endure to the end.  It was a great experience to be a part of.

Elder Rappleye was loving that there was spam and BYU chocolate milk in the cafeteria. 

     Wednesday, day 3 at the MTC was all about learning to share the gospel on social media and presenting our challenge to the Rollins.  And the Rollins had to give us a challenge.  They challenged us to listen to Elder Brock P. Hales, April 2019 conference talk about answers to prayer. We did listen to it after dinner before the devotional that night.

     We attended the Character of Christ devotional in the evening with all the new missionaries that entered the MTC that week. The presentation was based on Elder Bedar's devotional given at the MTC about 10 years ago.  I read that devotional several years ago, but it was a great refresher. It was very good. Here are just a few highlights - the character of Christ turns outward in love, compassion, and service, so remember it's not about you! The challenge is to increasingly turn outward in your life instead of inward.  Only through the atonement of Jesus Christ can we obtain the character of Christ and become like him.

Here is a sculpture on the MTC campus depicting the calling of the apostles.  It's the actual boat used in the church's Bible videos.

     Thursday, day 4 was more talking about sharing the gospel through social media, this time using messenger. Plus, we had our follow up with the Rollins where each couple had a chance to find out if the challenge we proposed was accepted and if not to reinvite them to try to compete their challenge.  Our afternoon teachers also taught about adjusting to missionary life, senior style and we did an activity in the PMG book to evaluate ourselves in 10 different Christlike attributes. It's the first time I've seen a way to evaluate myself on something like that.  We are always being encouraged to become Christlike, but this evaluation helped me see how it translates into everyday life.  After dinner, we got the opportunity to attend a session at the Provo temple with all the couples in our district. That was very nice because that was an activity where we were back in our comfort zone, something we were familiar with doing.

     Friday, day 5 at the MTC was our last day. It was my favorite day. It was less time in the classroom and more time engaged in activities.  We had our last activity with the Rollins. They called it the help activity, but I can't remember why (senior brain). We just got to decide between us what we wanted to do on campus to bond more. We all wanted to go view and discuss the beautiful murals they have in the T4 building. There are 2 murals on each of the 6 floors in the building.  All are amazing.  I'll just post a few of them. 

     Elder Rappleye is standing by a huge visual display which is in the T4 building as well.

This is a mural of the sons of Mosiah.

     The top picture is a picture of young Joseph Smith.  

     The picture to the right is a picture of the brother of Jared molting the white stones that the Lord touched and caused them to give light to use in the barges as they crossed the ocean. 

     The bottom picture is Moses parting the Red Sea.

Sister Lunt also talked to us about how much we as senior missionaries can help the younger missionaries in encouraging and uplifting them when they are discouraged, struggling, or homesick. Then they gave us an opportunity to go outside and find some younger missionaries and talk to them and find ways to encourage and uplift them.  The first set of Elders we talked to were going to South Korea and had been at the MTC for 8 weeks, so they were leaving the MTC soon. We had them practice their Korean on us. Sounded pretty good to us, so we told them we were impressed and great job! We also had time to talk to another Elder who had just come into the MTC that week.  He was going to in Thailand.  He was in good spirits and claimed he was adjusting well to the MTC.  We just told him that he was in the right place and would be awesome.

     This was our last time with our district. Here is a picture of our district.  From left to right - Elder and Sister Killpack (from Firth, ID), welfare and self-reliance mission to London, England; Elder and Sister Clark (from Henderson, Nevada), CES seminaries and institute mission to South Africa; Elder and Sister Vester (from West Valley City, UT), humanitarian mission to Spain; Elder and Sister Mickleberry (from Denver, CO), humanitarian mission to Thailand/Laos; us, and Elder and Sister Frodsham (from Newcastle, CA), welfare and self-reliance mission to Lyon, France.  Missing was the Coopers (from Roy, UT), humanitarian mission to Dominican Republic.  They had to leave the MTC early and return home because Sister Cooper got covid.  They had to finish their MTC experience through zoom.

     We headed to our last meal in the MTC cafeteria.  As we sat eating our lunch, we were facing the missionaries that were still waiting in line for lunch.  It was an extremely long line, the longest line I had seen the whole week.  Most of the missionaries were visiting with each other, but then we spied one sister missionary between a group of missionaries.  As we watched, we noticed that no one was paying any attention to her or talking to her.  She had her head down and kept looking at her phone.  Both Elder Rappleye and I agreed that she looked lost and maybe feeling like she didn't belong.  Elder Rappleye said, "She looks like she could use some encouragement."  I said, "I wonder if I could go to the front of the line and get her lunch."  Then the spirit whispered, "Why don't you?"  So, I got up, walked over to her, and asked Sister Johnson where her companion was.  Shoe pointed to a table where her companion was already eating lunch, apparently, she had gotten something different for lunch that didn't have as long a line. I told Sister Johnson that I could get her lunch for her so she wouldn't have to wait in line anymore.  She perked up.  I told her to follow me, and we walked around to the front of the line.  I had her wait at the condiment station while I walked over and said, "excuse me" to the missionaries at the front of the line, grabbed a plate of chicken tenders and fries, walked over to Sister Johnson and handed the plate to her.  She was so thankful, and I could see that her spirit had been lifted.  I certainly hope she felt God's love for her at that moment.  I just wished I talked to her for a little bit after that instead of walking away.  I knew she was anxious to eat her lunch, so I didn't want to detain her. Also, I wish I had gotten a picture of her, but I didn't have my phone. I wish I had the inspiration to look for a missionary to take to the front of the line at every meal at the MTC.

     The last meeting of the day was a safety and security meeting for all the senior missionaries.  They just gave us advise on staying safe and telling us certain things to watch out for while out in the mission. field.

     Then we were saying our goodbyes to everyone in our district.  All of them were staying in the MTC for one more week of training.  We were the only ones finished with our MTC experience.  We headed home to have one more weekend to do a little more last-minute preparations and spend a little more time with family.

The Mission Begins

Q

      November 6,2023 - this is the day we reported to the Provo MTC, but our mission journey began long before this date.  It's been 2 years in the making when we started preparations to get our affairs in order to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but with delays in retirement, getting our house remodeled for renters, and family events it took us a lot longer than anticipated. But after all the delays, doctors appointments, and interviews completed we were finally able to submit our mission papers in early August 2023. Then the waiting began. 

     We were able to put preferences in kinds of mission we would like to serve (our top choice was humanitarian or welfare and self-reliance) and locations.  We had picked out 5 or 6 different places we thought would be interesting to go, but we mainly just wanted foreign English-speaking to a place we haven't been to before. 

     After 3 weeks of waiting, our mission call arrived on August 29, 2023. With some intrepidation and excitement we got all our family on a Google meet call and opened the email and started to read it.  When we read 

the words "Hawaii Laie Mission... to serve as a Polynesian Cultural Center specialist, we were quite surprised, shocked, and excited all at the same time. At the last minute and on a whim, we had included the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii on our list of preferences, thinking we didn't have much of a chance of getting called to serve there. It took several days for the news to sink in that we are really going to Hawaii on our mission. 

     This is a picture of the sunset the evening we found out that for the next 18 months we will be in Hawaii hopefully seeing lots of beautiful sunsets. God's love is real!

     We had only a little over 2 months to finish getting everything we needed to do  done. The list was long,  and it seemed like as we got one thing done,  two more things were added to the list. It was a bit stressful,  but with the Lord's help we were able to accomplish what needed to be done in time.

     We were released from our calling at the Fayette branch at the end of September.  It was a bittersweet day because we have been serving there for 4 years and we will miss so many people and friends that we have grown to love through serving with and for them.

     We spoke in our home ward on Sunday,  October 29th.  It was great to have all of our children and grandchildren there except for Scott and his girls, but we are thankful for technology that made it possible for them to listen in Florida.       

     The next Sunday,  November 5th, Cathy's birthday,  we were set apart as full-time missionaries by our stake president,  President James Stevens. Again we were thankful for technology that made it possible for Noelle's family, Derek's family, and Scott's family to participate even though they could not be there in person. We are extremely grateful for everyone else in the family that was there to support us and share their love with us. 

     Afterwards we all went to our house and had a breakfast meal to break our fast and celebrate Cathy's birthday. 

We drove down to the Provo MTC on a cool, but sunny Monday morning,  arriving at our assigned time of 10:10am.   Although it was a totally new experience for us to be in the MTC ourselves and not as parents dropping off a missionary,  it seemed so natural to be there going through the check-in process.  We found out that we were assigned to stay at the Residence Inn,  just down the street from the MTC, during our time at the MTC. We were grateful to be there, along with several other senior missionary couples,  instead of on the MTC campus.  We could use the fitness room there along with eating breakfast at the hotel before heading over to the MTC each morning. Our room was big and with a kitchen.  If we had known we would have that room,  we would have brought with us snacks that we had at home.

     During the check-in process,  we met another couple we knew already,  the Reeders. Our daughter,  Aimee was their daughter Molly's, doubles tennis partner  Aimee's senior year in high school.  They were headed out on their second mission. This time to South Korea on a military relations mission.  What a wonderful surprise to see them!

     Since receiving our call, whenever we were asked where we were going to serve, we have almost felt guilty responding "the Polynesian Cultural Center ". People's reactions have been anywhere from "lucky" to "how did you get that call?" to "I feel sorry for you" in a sarcastic tone.  But we learned

to respond, "someone has to do it, so we are glad to be able to serve. " At the MTC, we got asked a lot "where are you serving " and we got a lot of those kinds of responses. 

     After getting our picture taken in front of the world map, all the senior missionaries met in a room to start our training.  We found out that there were 117 senior missionaries in our group. We were the only couple going to the Hawaii Laie Mission,  but there were 3 single senior sisters going there assigned to the PCC as well. 

 

    After a lunch break, (which we both were not hungry so we walked around the MTC campus,) we were given our district assignments.  We were surprised that the single sisters going to the PCC was not in our district. We were put in a large district of 8 couples, most of them serving humanitarian missions or welfare and self reliance missions. There was one couple serving a CES seminaries and institute mission, and us. Several had been on missions before, but we were not the only ones serving a full-time mission for the first time. 

           This is all 117 senior missionaries in our group.  We are on the front right hand side standing by the sister in the yellow jacket. Take note of her and her husband,  unbeknownst to either of us at the time this picture was taken, they would be part of our MTC experience for most of the week.

 

     We started our classroom experience with our district in room 435 in the T1 building Monday afternoon. Our cute afternoon teachers were Sisters Barlow and Bensen.  After introductions all around again, we started learning about Preach My Gospel (PMG).

     Sister Bensen is the sister on the left in the picture and Sister Barlow is the sister on the right. Notice the very neat handwriting on the white board behind them, that is Sister Barlow's handwriting. 

     We had our first experience in the MTC cafeteria for dinner that night. Imagine about 2,000 hungry young Elders and Sisters pouring into the cafeteria excited and eager to get their meal. Luckily for the senior missionaries,  we are allowed to go to the front of any line and the young missionaries will  graciously allow us to get our meal ahead of them. A very nice perk that comes in handy every meal time, but especially on our last meal there. I will explain about that in a later post.

After dinner, we had a meeting with the branch presidency. But since we are only in the MTC for a week  and not staying for Sunday,  we will not be involved with the branch.

      The first day of missionary training and missionary life is in the books.