The most amazing week ever.

What an amazing week we have spent here.  I wish I could have gone to the MTC 40 years ago and learned the things we are learning now!  The Spirit is so strong here.  The other couple missionaries who are here are so dedicated and bring with them such a spirit. We have loved getting to know them and the sacrifices they have made to come on a mission.  The leadership here is so awesome and they provide teaching experiences that are so beneficial for us.  The teachers themselves are also awesome.  We have come to appreciate what David did while he taught here and what Brandon is currently doing.  The missionaries that they have taught will always remember them and be grateful for them for the impact they have made on their lives!  There is really no way to describe what happens here.  It is truly a miracle to organize all these missionaries into places to live, classes, cafeteria time, etc.  It's been hard for us to keep up with all that is required of us, so I can hardly imagine what it takes for the missionaries who have to learn a language on top of it.  That is another missionary miracle!

We were divided into districts at the beginning of the week and we just loved our district!  The brothers at the end are our teachers.  From left, Bro. Sillitoe, the Budgetts, the Larsens, the Farlands, us, and Bro. Carver. 

 The Jennings, our BFFs at the MTC.  They live in Layton and are going to Nigeria!

The food at the MTC is soooooo good!  No wonder missionaries put on weight while they're here! 

This week we were to teach "investigators" in the TRC (teaching resource center) on Wednesday and Thursday. These "investigators" are actually people who just live in Utah County and are willing to come in and do this for a service, which is really neat.  Our teachers prepared us to do this, but probably our best preparation was with Brandon before we left.  It really helped us to meet with our "investigators" and try to teach them instead of teaching a lesson. We learned so much from these experiences, and I'm sure it will really help us as we hope to teach in Las Vegas. Glen and I learned a lot about working together as a companionship and it was fun.  On Friday we taught "less actives" who were actually other senior missionaries and it was a great experience too.  We were the less actives for a couple, and then a different couple were less actives for us.  I thought that this was even more rewarding and we hope we get to have real experiences like this in Las Vegas.  I can't tell you how valuable this kind of preparation is!  I wish everyone in the Church could have this experience.  We really are blown away with the kinds of things that we have learned.  The Book of Mormon takes on a whole new meaning when it is used to show such beautiful doctrine in these teaching experiences--it is so amazing!  The Book of Mormon is the word of God--there is no way that Joseph Smith could have thought it up.  Oh, how we love the Book of Mormon! 

We were sad when we got here and learned that we would be staying at the Marriott because we wanted the total MTC experience.  But it was a really hot week here, and the other couples told us that their rooms here were so hot they couldn't sleep.  We didn't have that problem, but we do miss being here at night.