Missionary Training - Week 2

This is Vivian writing...Sean and I have decided to take turns keeping up our mission blog!

We finished our first week of training which was held at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. It was a really wonderful and exhausting week as we learned basic skills for sharing the gospel with others. We learned principles of talking with people and of asking questions for deeper understanding (great skills for any occasion!). We then practiced asking questions to help us understand spiritual needs. We also planned and shared lessons with spiritual messages with other junior and senior missionaries, looked for opportunities to serve others and attended devotionals. One of my favorite things to do was practicing our skills with junior missionaries on the MTC campus, learning about their needs, and sharing meals with them. We finished up on Friday and were exhausted from the week!

Today we started our second week of training in Salt Lake City. This one is with all of the other missionaries that will be serving in medical and mental health assignments. It is a very international group: of the 16 missionaries in this training only one couple will be serving in the United States. It was a tender day for me as we learned about the work that is being done to help missionaries have success in their lives and in their service. Since 2019 each mission holds a monthly Medical Health Council meeting where the mission leaders, medical advisors, and mental health advisors work together to address the needs of missionaries. I feel so grateful to be part of this work and to see how much care is given to each individual missionary to help them find success. The church is consistently evolving their processes to improve the experience for all who are involved. I hadn't realized just how much prayer, council, and work is going into making these improvements. I am excited to be a part of making those changes and improving the experience for each missionary who is sacrificing much to share the gospel.

Fun fact for the week: Missionaries at the MTC drink over 600 gallons of chocolate milk every week. We tried to do our share by drinking chocolate milk at many of our meals!

Pictures of the week!

(left to right, top to bottom)

1. A beautiful Sunday walk around Sugarhouse Park.

2. Our MTC district - off to Ghana, Arizona, and Singapore

3. A stop off at the Orem Utah Temple did not disappoint - it was beautiful!

4. Wishing we could be biking missionaries!

5. See fun fact above :)

6. Connecting with our wonderful niece Hadley who is a teaching supervisor for Mandarin, Cantonese, and Mongolian.