This is just a note to all of you that we promised to keep informed. We entered the MTC yesterday (Mission Training Center for the non members of our church- please excuse us if our lingo sounds like alphabet soup. We have a ton of acranyms. I think we in this church could speak for days and never complete a sentence that didn't have an acranym in it.) Entering and beginning training was an overwhelming experience. Seniors come in on Monday, Young Elders and Sisters from the US and Canada come in on Wed. and Foriegn Elders and Sisters that are coming here for English training come in on Thursday. There are other language training missions around the world so not all missionaries come here. There are between 1800-2000 Young Elders and Sisters and about 100 Seniors here now. We are in training or have homework most of the day. I have a few minutes tonight because we just finished a Devotional. It was done by Sister Ann Dibb, she is a counselor in the Young Woman's Presidency and the Daughter of President Monson. Her remarks were about the characteristics of her father. It was a great experience. The Seniors all sit down front and it was overwhelming when 2000 missionaries behind us sang Called to Serve. The couples we are in the MTC with are mostly Humanitarian and Welfare missionaries with a few going in other directions and 3 medical and 5 proselyting. We have couples with us who are going to the Republic of Georgia (humanitarian), Tiwain (Proselyting) Hong Kong (Medical), Singapore(humanitarian), the Marshal Islands(medical), Surenam(Proselyting), Canada(Proselyting), Germany (Humanitarian), Madagascar( can't remember to do what) and Us to Colombia(medical and auditing). The rest are going to places in the US, About half of the couples have already served at least one mission. Some have served more. There is another group of seniors here as well who are finishing up training for Church Education System Missions. And there are some mission presidents and wives learning languages. I met one the other day struggling with tagalog (I think) anyway what they speak in the Phillipines. It is amazing the language program that goes on here. Starting Friday I will be teaching gospel discussions in Spanish. That is a scary thought since I am not quite even sure how to ask to go the bathroom. I just finished an exercised where I had to give Darwin commands and directions and get him from one place to another in Spanish. I only walked him into a poll a couple of times. Oh well. You will find that this post is repeated on our blog which is at www.darvic.net/joomla in the Blog Zone under Darwin and Vicki Blog. This will be the only time. From now on I will probably just send out some notes that say I have posted some things. I will try to post weekly (or daily if things are exciting.)
Oh By the Way. We have learned that we will be traveling a lot in Colombia and Ecuedor and we will have a 2 day training with the auditor trainers from the Carribian, Mexico, Central America and Western South America in Mexico City in July so I will try to keep the pictures and posts coming. The pictures that will go up with this post are just a few scenes from the MTC on Wed of Last Week when we shout a few pictures of the 10:00 batch of missionaries coming in. I also hope to have a picture of our MTC Tutor up. So check it out. Again it is in the BLOG ZONE - Darwin and Vicki Blog at www.darvic.net/joomla
Love you all and miss you.
Vicki