Elder and Sister Waldron at the MTC

We have just finished our first week of training at the MTC in Provo.  We joined about 25 other couples in the church just north of the MTC for five days of training in Preach My Gospel.  This was a wonderful experience including devotionals, classroom training from returned missionaries (BYU students), and role play activities with volunteers from the community.  It was fun to see the willing faces of the seniors as well as the army of young missionaries who come through the gates for their training.  Some come for a week, some, like us, for two and others for longer (language training).  In that mass of missionaries, we managed to find Elder Braden Manning, our nephew, at the Tuesday night devotional.  It was fun to see him and know we are sharing the same training and spirit while at the MTC.  We had some fun, sweet experiences while there and hope we are, at least a little, better prepared to serve the Lord as missionaries on Tarawa.

 This is the big world map at the MTC.  All the missionaries usually wind up here taking a picture pointing to their mission destination.

This is the entrance to the MTC.  They have some of the countries' flags flying beside the front doors.

From left to right:  Sister and Elder Saunderson, Sister Pace (Teacher), Sister and Elder Bell, Sister and Elder Nielson, and Sister and Elder Waldron

This is half of the senior couples in our group.  There was another picture but I can't get it to load--we aren't in it anyway...

It does show, however that there were about 27 couples and three single sisters in the group.