Sat., Aug. 31, 2013. Finishing at the MTC, then travel to San Jose, California

^{Thursday, last day of classes.}

We had Brother Foutin speak to us in the morning about vehicles. 

At lunch time, we started loading up the car.

Afternoon classes, we had a testimony meeting, and then we had like a practice or sort of like a test, on the things we learned. Several different tasks to complete.  We completed ours about 3:50, and then said good bye to all and went to our room, changed clothes, took the rest of the stuff to the car, stopped in the front of the MTC to turn in keys to the room and de-activate our cards, and then hit the road.  We drove as far as Elko, Nevada, stopping for the night about 8 or so local time (they are on Pacific time zone).    Then bed.

Fri., Aug. 30^th….got up at 6 a.m.  Got ready, picked up a breakfast burrito at McDonalds to eat as we drove, and were on the road by 7:30 a.m.  Lots of construction!  Arrived in San Jose at the mission office just before 5 p.m.  Met a few in the office, and got a quick tour.  Taken to the place we are staying for 2 weeks till we can get into the apartment on Sept. 13^th.  It is a members home that they rent out to the missionaries.  It is actually the home the Cattron’s will be staying in.  They arrive next week, Wed. I think.  When they get here, we share it with them till the 13^th, so 1 ½ weeks.  This house has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 1 small bedroom that they have set up as an office.  It has orange trees and grapefruit trees in the backyard!  We went to the first store we found when we went out for the evening to pick up a few grocery items for breakfast…..a Safeway store, and prices were crazy high!  So we just got a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a quart of milk, a couple of bananas, and a box of cereal.  We thought of getting some bacon, but it was about $9 for a pkg!  So we skipped it.  We will find Walmart tomorrow and get more groceries at hopefully a better price!  We were hungry, so found a KFC and got dinner, which was also expensive….nearly $20 for the 2 of us!  Guess we won’t be eating out much!!  Then bed.

Sat., Aug 31^st…..Got up at 7, went for a walk for a half hour, cleaned up, ate breakfast, dressed and went to find some things.  Located the branch we are assigned to….the Vietnamese Branch (now, this will be interesting!); located our apartment we will be moving into; located Walmart (the bacon was $3 + cheaper than Safeway!) and got a few items we will need the next couple of weeks.  We will be packing a lunch everyday, so got things for that.  Gary spoke to the mission president’s wife.  We had hoped to meet them today, but they are very busy, and had a lot of baptisms to attend.  So, we will have dinner with them next week when the Cattron’s arrive.  We will most likely meet them while we work in the office next week.  Work begins on Monday.  Driving has been interesting around here….we can’t believe the traffic!  And, the GPS isn’t always accurate, we have learned.  In fact, when we arrived, it got us mixed up as soon as we got off the freeway, and when we were on the corner, and could see the church to our right, it wanted us to turn left down a road.  So, we learned it can get us near, but not always to, our destination. 

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

One more night and day here, then we are on our way to San Jose!

Today went well.  In class today, we learned about Housing-opening and closing a house and setting up preset payments, Referral Manager, Finances-journal entries, duties of a Finance secretary, Bank of America things like PAT and WORK for the cards used in the mission.  And we had guest speakers today, Brother and Sister Hawkes (and they are related to Jean Anderson!!  Sis. Hawkes is Keith’s niece!)  They talked of other things we can do on our mission, such as making our apartment look homey, then inviting neighbors to dinner, being available to invite investigators to dinner, even the missionaries.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Today, I did the devotional talk in our morning class.  I talked about faith being the opposite of fear.  In class today, we did Finance, introduction to Mission Organization, Missionary Transfers, beginning of Housing, and we did Outlook—email, calendar, contacts, and something else, can’t remember right off.

After dinner tonight, we headed to the Marriott Center for the fireside/devotional.  We walked over…the weather was great.  They never tell ahead of time who the speaker is, so we don’t learn till we get there.  They have monitors that tell different things to the missionaries there, some are things about Preach My Gospel, and how they need to stay seated during the meeting, and last week they had the name of the person speaking.  This week, there was nothing said about who was speaking, so we were beginning to think it was someone high up (the lady next to me who was Sister Turner and I were talking together about this). 

It was Elder Neil L. Anderson and his wife.  It was a great meeting, about Love and Sacrifice.  Towards the end of the meeting, I noticed a security man quietly go up to someone on the podium, so I thought “something’s up”.  After the meeting concluded, then the person conducting got up and said it was a severe storm outside now, with not only rain but thunder and lightning, so we had to wait for awhile to leave till it was safer.  All the young missionaries walk over to the Marriott Center.  Seniors can take a shuttle bus, but we wanted to walk.  Well, we rode the bus home!  It was still pouring when they let us leave, but no more lightning.  We probably sat in the Center singing songs for 15 to 20 minutes while we waited for the all clear.

So, got here later than we had planned.  If we had walked we would have been faster.  The shuttle bus always takes the seniors to the Marriott Hotel first before coming back to the MTC.  Now time to get ready for bed!

Monday, August 26, 2013. Office training week.

Today began our Office Training!!!  Yes, I loved it all!  I just eat up computer stuff, so it was a great day!  We began the day at 8:00 a.m.  Song, prayer and spiritual thought (which we do twice a day, morning and after lunch too).  Then introductions, introduction to computers, which was very brief, as our group all had been on computers before.  If was very basic for those who needed it, but we didn’t.  Then an introduction to Microsoft Word 2010.  Lunch next, then devotional time again, then introduction to iMOS, which stands for Internet Mission Office System.  It is the program the church uses in the missions.  Next came introduction to Microsoft Excel 2010.  Even though there were lots on Word I knew, I learned a few new things, and I really didn’t know much about Excel, so that was fun to learn.  I knew nothing about iMOS, so that was good to learn, especially since we will be using it in the Mission Office.

Met some of the new Senior Couples who arrived today.  One couple, the Cattron’s …….we met at dinner.  They are with the new group sort of, but not really.  They arrived a month ago, but the husband had a heart attack 2 days after getting here, and has been in the hospital, and recuperating since.  He is finally cleared to come back to the MTC for training, and they hope to leave for the mission field the end of this week or the first of next.  They will be in our mission, serving a MLS mission.

Hope to have a good night’s rest tonight and a GREAT day tomorrow!

Aug. 25, 2013

Well, already I am behind!  Friday the 23^rd, we finished up our first week at the MTC with our Preach My Gospel training.  It was a great week!  Made some new friends, and it was hard to say good-bye to some on Friday, as they were leaving to go to their assigned missions.  Some others, like us, are here for a second week of training, so it will be good to see them again and get to know some others better than we did from our first week.

Friday’s assignment was to role play…..both as a less active, and as a missionary to a less active.  It was a good learning experience. 

When classes ended, we headed home to finish our cleaning and packing. 

Saturday, we  visited with some neighbors, Grandpa Yearsley, and Scott’s family…..we had lunch with Scott’s family in Pocatello at Pizza Pie Café…the kids choice.  Ashley and Casey joined us too.  It was nice visiting with them again.  They gave us a goody bag to take with us.

We loaded the trunk first, packed the suitcases, then put some of them in.  We had so much more to load! 

This morning, Sunday, I woke up at 4, and couldn’t get back to sleep….I kept thinking about what were we going to do, it wouldn’t all fit.  Finally, at 5:30, I just got up, and good thing I did.  There was so much to do still!  When Gary woke up, I told him I decided I didn’t need the sewing machine after all, and some of the kitchen stuff needed to come out too.  We hadn’t even packed our coats yet, and didn’t know where they would fit otherwise.  So, it turned out we loaded and unloaded the trunk 3 times!  Finally we got what had to go, and took out what didn’t.  We learned on Friday that when we get to San Jose, we will not be able to move into our apartment until Sept. 13^th, so apparently, we will be living out of a suitcase for 2 more weeks.

We went to Sacrament Meeting only in Arimo, then came home and finished last minute cleaning then we hit the road at 2:51.  We were making pretty good time, even with a couple of places with road construction.  Traffic was light.  Then we hit Lehi……the road construction there was slower, but we still made it by shortly before 6.  We dropped off our luggage….what we were taking up anyway…..and then Gary went to park the car while I took a few items up to our apartment in the M2 building on the MTC campus.  It is the senior missionary building, on the 3^rd floor of that building.  I went back down, started hauling all the items inside the door…they were in the loading area….then after I got them all inside the door, I started moving them towards the elevator.  Luckily, the hall was empty and quiet.  By then, I checked outside, and Gary was finally getting there.  So, we put everything in the elevator, went up to the 3^rd floor, and then put it all out of the elevator.  It took a couple of trips to get it all to our room.  Then we just left it, went to dinner, then to the devotional.  Elder Stephen B. Allen, Managing Director of the Missionary Department, was the speaker.  It was great!  He used Alma 26:27, 29, 30…..and based his talk on just that!

Looking forward to tomorrow, to our office training!