Getting off on the mission was a big deal. Getting home, yard, gardens & orchard ready to leave along with selling a couple vehicles and the travel trailer got to be overwhelming. Without our children seeing our need and helping out we would have never made it. Deirdre started coming over every Fri. for about the last month. Andrew & Glory and Leslie came over a lot the last couple weeks. By then we were numb and they helped us focus and get the job done.
So all of a sudden we were at the MTC with no more work but to enjoy the learning in Preach my Gospel the first week and PEF training the second week. We both kept daily journals of each day but to say it simply we hadn't given the two weeks at the MTC much thought. Our regiment was eat, study, eat, study and try to stay awake, eat, free time, except Tue and Sunday when they had an evening devotional. The first devotional was with Elder L. Tom Perry and the second was with Elder Rasband of the Seventy. We loved Elder Rasband's 2010 Oct. Priesthood talk on how missionaries were called. In his talk he said that Elder Eyring prayed before the assigning of missionaries that the Lord would let him know exactly where each missionary was to be called. I think we listened to that talk 15 times that last week before leaving home and we definitely had a testimony before we left the Uganda was going to be the perfect mission for us.
We spent our last night in Phoenix with the Eagars. It was sad to say good bye to everyone that came to spend Mother's day eve. with us. Deirdre got us to the air port May 14th 2012. Meeting us at the airport was Jami Allen, Rand's niece and her three children; Megan, Tom and Mary. I told her that we had a lot of luggage. We got it all in her van and had a delightful ride down to Provo. I had told her I would bring her some fresh squeezed lemon juice so it was a great trade - ride to Provo for some lemons that grow easily in our orchard at home. At the MTC Kelli, Jami's sister and two of her children; Josh and Hailey met us at the entrance. We only had time to take a picture and give them a hug before we were ushered off to get lunch and be ready for our first class.
Our dentist, Dr. Garth Holyoak told us that he had a brother that volunteered at the MTC. Wouldn't you know, his brother Reed Holyoak checked us in to our studio apartment on the 3rd floor of the Jacob Hamblin building or M1.
The Preach My Gospel training gave us some interesting practice teaching the gospel. We worked in groups of four couples with young return missionaries coaching us. Learning to focus on bringing people to Christ was what I learned was the most important. We had local people volunteer to come and let us practice teaching them the first couple lessons. We were kind of nervous but also excited to try out the lessons we had prepared. I think the reason it was easier for me was all the years I taught Primary. Boy does that prepare you. I feel sorry for the young missionaries. All they've done is sit in those classes.
Sat. was a free day and we got to attend the Provo temple. It has been over 34 years since Rand and I were married there. The temple itself is the same but the grounds were like heaven to me. They had rows and rows of the most beautiful pink roses. What fun I had taking pictures of them. Rand and I stood in the same spot that we were in when we took our picture for our wedding announcement. Where it was once all grass now it had pools of water and all those roses. What a difference.
Wednesday night we spent with Pres. Squires. He was a return mission president from Africa who is now over the Benson Food initiative. Pres. Jackson, our mission president had asked him to get with us while here and teach us about it. The object of the initiative is to teach families to be self sufficient. In Uganda when it is the rainy season they have food enough but two times during the year it dries up and they get pretty hungry before the rainy season comes again. I can't imagine how people could be so dependent on something like rain. We hardly ever have rain in Phoenix and it has been our life style to be self sufficient. We hope we can teach the people some of what we have learned.
Monday we had a free day and took the opportunity to hike up Rock Canyon behind the temple. It was such fun. It was just a year ago that we hiked the Grand Canyon. We're surely not in the same level of fitness as we were last year.
Monday afternoon Janice Marriott came by and we drove up with her to have dinner with several other cousins plus Sally, Rand's sister-in-law. Hadn't seen Denise and Todd Fawson for years. Kori we saw last summer at the Brown reunion. I was hoping Butch would bring his wife Jami, she's the one that gave me instructions for making the scrubies everyone got for Christmas but he came by himself.
Tue. was our first day in SLC. We rode up with the Senima's. The Senima's were told they would be going to Uganda. Then they got called to the Philippines. They were really surprised and wondered why. Turns out Dan Senima grew up in the ward my parents have been in for the last 47 years. I knew his Mother and sister but he left for college and we didn't know each other. They love to hike too so we had lots to share. About day three I asked them if they knew Marilyn and Dillard Broderick from Tucson. Joan Sinema told us their best friend was raised as a foster child by them. Small world.
Brother & Sister Jarvis and her husband were our coaches for PEF. Sister Jarvis had a tatted neckless and pin on the first day. We became fast friends. One day she and I dashed over to the new City Creek mall to see the facade that they reinstalled on the new ZCMI store. It is really a lovely mall with the creek flowing through the middle of the walk way. Sometimes it is a water fall and other times just a trickle.
Wed. we were told that we probably should fly to South Africa to meet with the area director of PEF. By Fri they had a new itinerary for us. We will be leaving Monday instead of Sun. Our first stop off will be Chicago. My sister Becky will meet us at the airport and show us Chicago in about 3 hours. Looking forward to that. The rest we'll tell about after it has happened.
Rand's brother Steve came down on Sat. May 26th to say good-bye. Rand has been wishing he could get another pedicure. He had his first one on our last anniversary. We talked steve into getting one too and I got some good pictures of the two of them getting a pedicure. The funny part was listening to them talk about their cowboy days. I watched the practitioner. She was getting a chuckle out of the two of them.
