Missionary Training Center

 Sister DeVictoria writing:  We have just completed our first week at the MTC.  Our feelings about this week can be partially represented in the picture below.  

 

Actually, this week has been a wonderful experience.  I've never been in a place where so many people introduce themselves and as we talk we feel like we have always been friends.  It has been wonderful to get to know the young and senior missionaries!  We arrived with a group of 132 senior missionaries; one of the largest groups ever.  They refer to our group as the "Rasband effect".  

 

It has been so interesting to hear some of the unique missions to which people have been called.  There are missionaries assigned to some of the following missions:  Mongolia, Nepal, Northern Africa/UAE, Egypt, New Zealand, Honolulu, Malaysia, as well as many State side missions.  One widowed sister will be serving in the Bulgaria/Greece mission.  She will be companions with another widow who was previously a companion of hers!  One couple has been called to serve in a church history site where they will be Teamsters and drive oxen!  I met one young Elder who has Down syndrome.  He told me that he and his parents have been called to serve in the office in Thailand!  I also got word from a former seminary student of mine that he and his parents have been called to serve at church headquarters in Salt Lake City!  

One highlight of my week was that I saw a young man who we worked with in the Special Needs Activity program.  He works in the cafeteria of the MTC washing dishes.  I saw him peeking over at us while he was eating lunch and I recognized him so went over and talked to him.  We spent so many years working with him, it made me so happy to see him again.  Below is a picture of the cafeteria.

 

We have spent this week learning from the "Preach My Gospel" manual.  Although our entire District are going to serve as office missionaries, it has been a good opportunity to understand what the young missionaries are being taught, and hopefully we will have opportunities to practice these principles ourselves.  

 

 

We had two great meetings in the evenings.  The first was a fireside with Pres. Steven J. Lund who is the General Young Men's president of the church.  He and his wife spoke and had wonderful messages.  He spoke about how our testimonies are cumulative.  Even though a little child doesn't have the same testimony as an adult, we cannot discount that they also have a testimony in progress.  Our life experiences add to our testimonies over time.

The second meeting was called "The Character of Christ".  The speakers talked about the traits that Jesus Christ exhibits, and how we should all be working to develop those traits.  They especially emphasized how the Savior was always looking outward instead of inward.  As we look outward, we develop charity and find opportunities to help others.  They had two special speakers who came from very difficult backgrounds.  They were able to testify to how learning about Jesus Christ helped them to overcome the trials and mistakes of their lives and put them on the right path.  One of them, a woman, even spent 5 years in Federal prison.  But she was able to rise above her mistakes through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  

Next week we will begin our office training.  It is a daunting thought, but we trust that the Lord will help us to learn our duties so that we can help the mission.  

Elder DeVictoria writing:

What I enjoyed about the MTC experience this week was the spirit of the place; the feeling that we are truly embarking on a great mission, a great adventure, loaded with purpose.  Very meaningful.  And I loved rubbing shoulders with other missionaries who entered the MTC on the same day as us.  It's so heartwarming to hear where they are from, where they are going, what their duties will be, and why they chose to serve a mission at this time.  

With such a large group entering with us, we certainly couldn't get to know everyone, but we got to know quite a few, especially those in our District.  There are 8 couples in our District.  They are going to Montreal Canada, Germany Alpine mission that includes Switzerland and Austria, Auckland New Zealand, Peru, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Northern Colorado.

The Preach My gospel instruction was brief but powerful.  It basically just gave us a taste of the content of the Preach My gospel manual.  They basically just touched on some of the chapters.  As mature members of the church with a lot of experience, it's not like there was anything new to us.  The principles of the gospel are not new to us.  One thing that was emphasized was the use of social media.  They strongly encouraged us to participate in social media while we are serving as full time missionaries.  I'll have to admit that I am resistant.  I will have to prayerfully find my way.

We invite you participate in sharing the gospel as you can, wherever you are, in whatever way.  We encourage you to leave comments below, or contact us through Facebook or email.  We would love to hear from you.

Elder and Sister DeVictoria 

Preparations

 It is now about three weeks before we enter the MTC.  We are doing all we can to prepare.  We have started having online training with our mentors, Elder and Sister Wells.  They served as office specialists in TaiChung, and she served a mission when she was young in Taipei.  She is training me to be the mission secretary, and Elder Wells is training Paul to be in charge of finances, housing etc.  When we get to Taiwan we will learn more about our duties.  

From what we can tell, there is only one office couple in Taipei.  Sister Croft served a mission in Taipei at the same time that I served my first mission.  She is from Taiwan.  They were initially called to be MLS missionaries, but were asked to transfer to the office last June.  They are scheduled to finish their mission the first of April, so we should have a few weeks to be trained by them.

Our youngest son is getting married April 7, so we actually got permission to come home for the wedding.  We will try to make it a quick trip.  It is very important that we attend the wedding and we are so happy that our son found such a great companion.

We have seen the Lord's hand in helping us prepare.  One of the first helps we received was with regard to my (Delores) immunization record.  I needed to give the church a record of all of my immunizations, including those I had when I was young.  I called our HMO in California and was able to get some of the dates, but didn't know what to do about the ones I had when I was young.  One morning when I was thinking about it, I suddenly had a memory of seeing an immunization record glued inside of a scrapbook.  I hadn't looked at that scrapbook in years.  I pulled it out and flipped through it, and there was the original record from when I served my first mission!  The scriptures say that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance.  This surely happened with me!

The next help we received was with our drivers licenses.  We knew that they would expire this year on our birthdays, and we wanted to renew them and also get an International driver's license.  One afternoon we were talking about it and Paul said, "Why don't I look online and see if we can get an appointment?"  We weren't even sure how long it would take to get an appointment!  He pulled up the website and saw that they had two appointments that very day, in a half an hour!  He scheduled both and we zoomed down to the DMV.  We also read that you can only renew the license 6 months before your birthday unless you can prove that you won't be in the country at the time of renewal.   So we took copies of our mission call with us.  After getting there, we found out that it could take 6-8 weeks to get the licenses back!  We had just enough time to get them before leaving for Taiwan.  We provided our calls and there was no question that they would allow us to renew.  We felt we were prompted to renew them that day.  

One more help we received was in regard to our car.  Back in the summer the transmission to our van went out.  The dealer told us it was still under warranty and they would tow it and replace the transmission for free.  We felt that was a blessing that it happened right before our warranty expired.  But after having it fixed, the transmission still had a kind of whine and we wondered how long it would last.  We decided to try to sell it, but no one was buying.  Finally we decided to use it to trade in on a car for our son.  The dealer gave us full value for it!  We really felt helped in this.

We started having problems with our roof leaking, so decided to look in to having our roof replaced.  A company started working with us and contacted our insurance company.  They were only able to get the insurance company to pay for part of the roof.  But then they dropped the ball and we didn't hear from them for a couple of months.  We called them and they sent out a new guy to work with us and told us the previous guys had quit the company.  But the new guy dropped the ball too!  Another company reached out to us.  They were able to get the insurance company to pay much more!  We are now just waiting on the weather to get warm enough.  The glue won't stick if it is applied in too cold of weather.  

Overall, we have felt the Lord's hand in every step in our preparations.  We are so thankful for these tender mercies and look forward to being able to serve the Lord in Taiwan.

Our calling

 We have received our call to the Taiwan, Taipei mission as office specialists.  We are very excited to return to the land of our first missions.  We are especially excited to have the chance to spend the next 23 months together.  

The week before general conference, Paul said to me, “Let’s do it. Let’s push the button!”  I said that I thought we needed to plan more carefully.  The next week at conference Elder Rasband put out a plea for more senior missionaries.  We said, “That’s it!  Let’s do it!”  Immediately after conference we started applying.  It took us one month to get our applications in.  It took only three weeks to get our call!

We enter the MTC March 4, then leave for Taiwan March 16.  We look forward to serving!