A new week and a new phase of our training.  This is the computer training phase for us.  Some of our original group are now in place serving at their mission destinations.  Many of us are still here receiving specialized training.  As we began using the computers today, we were able to see all of the missionaries serving in our area in South Carolina.  The current count is 220 throughout the mission.  There is a couple from Wenatchee serving in Union, South Carolina.  We'll see them soon I'm sure.
A new group of senior missionaries came into the MTC today.  There are 9 single sisters in the group out of about 60.  We spent some time at dinner talking with two of the sisters.  They are going to New York, New York.  What an experience that would be!  They are very excited about it.
We have only 3 days of training left and then we'll be leaving beautiful Provo.  I love Utah.  The temple here is really gorgeous.  We did not attend, but I did walk the grounds and got a few pictures to share.

The mountains in the background are spectacular!  The grounds are perfection and with all the flowers that have been planted, and the fragrance of those flowers is a delight.

Sunday is definitely not a day off!  What an amazing day!  We started sacrament at 8am and had wonderful meetings.  We had the privilege of hearing from Sister Rosemary Wixam in Relief Society.  The music from The Spoken Word was so enriching and spiritual.  I particularly was touched by "The Lilies of the Field."  After our meetings were over we had lunch with sweet Sister Kelly from Georgia and then came back to the hotel.  We both had a nice nap!
Then back to the MTC for dinner and a departure devotional for any missionaries leaving this coming week.  All missionaries were asked to stand when their mission destination was called out.  And then lastly for the day was a fireside where we were taught by Richard I. Heaton, Administrative Director.  What a great experience that was.  He called up several Elders to help him by using their own personal conversion stories to teach us.  It was incredibly effective.  Listening to the Elders tell of their own personal journey was amazing.
Tomorrow we begin our computer training.  I am looking forward to that.  I'm also hoping that I can get more pictures taken to post on our blog!

It has been a wonderful day.  We slept in and even took a nap in the afternoon after shopping, fueling both the car and the truck and making a Thursday reservation at the RV park. Today is Doyle's birthday and his request was to have sushi for dinner.  That was an easy request to fill!!  We went to the Wild Ginger not too far from the hotel..it was very nice and the food was very good.  Dessert was a chocolate dipped cone from McDonalds.

The photo is a picture of all our group.  From the left, the Chipman's, the Green's, us and the Diehl's.  We loved our group!!! We have been so blessed to get to know them. What a wonderful week we have had!  Friday was very hard and very emotional as we said goodbye to the Diehl's who left for Minneapolis.  What a delight they were to know.  They live in Montana and are rancher/farmers there.  Sister Diehl was such a wonderful lady.  We had several very touching conversations with her.  The Green's are going to France.  What an exciting adventure that will be. The Chipman's will be serving a CES mission at Southern Virginia University.

One of our teachers, return missionary Sister Reese.

 
We are pointing to South Carolina, where we will serve, on the big map in the main hall of the Wilford Woodruff Administration Building.

Our first week is finished.  It has been a wonderful treasure to add to the scrapbook of our lives.
Now we know firsthand some of the experiences of the young missionaries as they navigate the MTC and learn the teaching tools they will need.  What wonderful young people with such great enthusiasm! Our second week will be focused on the computers and training for financial forms and paperwork.  Final day will be Thursday.  We'll hit the road again on Friday.  Doyle has all of our stops mapped out at about 300 miles per day.

Here we are in beautiful Provo.  We arrived on Saturday the 4th and spent 2 nights at an RV park near Utah Lake.  We really like it there.  It's a very nice park.  On Monday the 6th we moved our RV onto the MTC grounds and got changed clothes to check in and get our name badges.  The day was spent with orientations and tours so we could find our way around.  The busiest hub is the cafeteria.  (Doyle says that you take your life in your hands when you enter the cafeteria).  The MTC houses about 2400 young elders every week, plus about 200 senior missionaries and teachers and staff.  Today we talked to two new elders who had just arrived.  They use red dots on the name tags to identify the new arrivals.  Interestingly, they both arrived from Colorado and they were going to India (English speaking).  It is a sight to behold!  Such energy and enthusiasm!
Tuesday was a very long day.  We started classes at 8am and got out of our very first devotional here at 8pm. Today was not as long with classes starting at 8am and running through 4:15.  The instructors are wonderful and the senior missionaries all have inspiring and interesting stories to tell.  There are 42 couples in our group. We are then sub-divided into smaller groups.  Our group has a couple going to France.  The rest of us are serving in the states. We will continue to have classes together through Friday and for those of us staying for another week, we will be going into additional types of classes.
It's been beautiful and hot, but we have been inside alot so we haven't been able to enjoy the sun.  On Saturday we will have our first opportunity to relax and enjoy the area. Oh and did I mention, that I will sleep in on Saturday?  No 5:30 wake-up on that day!

We arrived in Provo today.  We left our home on August 1st bright and early in the morning.  We stayed at Baker City the first night and then on to Twin Falls, Idaho.  What a wonderful city.  We loved the impressive beauty of the Snake River Canyon and Shoshone Falls, the "Niagara of the West."

It reminded me so much of the basalt cliffs and majesty of the Columbia River.  We went down into the canyon to check out the golf course and watched about a dozen young people enjoying the zip-lines there.  It looked like so much fun.  I would have loved to have tried it..but not enough time. 





We attended the beautiful temple there.

What a wonderful way to start our Friday.  Today (Saturday) we made our final leg of this part of our journey. The travel was very uneventful until we hit the busy section of freeway that extends for some 60 or so miles on either end of SLC with no rest stops or easy pull-offs.   It was very stressful!  We're staying at the same RV park in Provo that we stayed at 4 years ago when we came down to BYU for education week.  It's very nice here and only about 15 minutes from the campus and MTC.  We decided to locate the MTC so that we don't get lost on Monday morning.  We finally found it.  Neither of our GPS's like the street names here with all the numbers. We didn't get totally lost but we did make several u-turns.  We went in and got our ID cards for our meals and our room.  We also found out where we'll be parking the 5th wheel for the next 2 weeks while we are in the MTC. We're so excited to begin!

Only one week left before we leave.  We'll be spending two weeks in the MTC studying Preach My Gospel and taking computer classes.  Then our driving plan is scheduled to take 7 days at about 300 miles a day.  The last few weeks have been filled with lots of blessings and encouragement from friends and family as well as several unexpected obstacles, set-backs and the death of someone dear.  We feel very blessed to have this opportunity and look forward to beginning our work in beautiful South Carolina.

With summer plans to spend time with grandchildren and family well under way, we left with our fifth wheel on June 16th to head to Idaho and spend a few days with our oldest granddaughter.  Four days later we picked up our two oldest grandsons and spent time exploring Sandpoint, Silverwood, Kellogg, Silver Mountain and the Crystal Gold Mine.  After 10 days we came home for two days and hoped our mission call would arrive in the mail.  It didn't.  Now our plans were to head south to see relatives in Chehalis and then off to Oregon.  The day after we left our wonderful neighbor, Mary Dodge, called us to say that the envelope had arrived.  I looked at Doyle and told him that our call was in and put the phone on speaker.  Mary opened the letter and read only the portion that told us where we were going and when we were to report.  Finally, we knew where the Lord would have us to go and serve. We are going to the Columbia, South Carolina mission.  We have mixed feelings about the humidity, but this is a place we have never traveled to and seeing what the old south has to offer will be so exciting.
We continued our summer plans and had a wonderful time with my sister Linda and her husband Walt and our daughter Kim and her husband Rocky and their children Jenna and Tony.  We also went camping with Doyle's brother Jerry and his wife Barbara.  While in Oregon the beach is a must and we spend alot of time exploring the beaches and area around Newport.  We even discovered a whole new district in Newport called Nye Beach.
We are now home and working feverishly to get our last minute affairs tended to.  We received instructions for missionary prep videos and family history documents that we are also working on.  The days will swifty pass by as we endeavor to make final preparations, I am sure.