Hello to all our family and friends,
We are wrapping up our first week here at the MTC. We have one more week to go. It’s fair to say that this has been an incredible experience so far. Here’s some numbers for you:
There are currently over 2500 young missionaries in the MTC this week. 500 new missionaries showed up this past Wednesday. Those 500 new missionaries arrived from 50 different countries, and will be learning 65 different languages. This is the busiest and most crowded week of the year so far, since most of the missionaries graduated from high school just two months ago.
We are constantly amazed at these kids. Some look like they haven’t hit puberty yet. Some look shocked. But all of them are excited, kind, and hard working. We keep a lookout for missionaries headed to Japan and try to chat with them every chance we can. Yesterday we spent ten minutes with a group of American elders headed to Japan and were really impressed at the level of their Japanese skill. They’ve only been here for three weeks and are speaking much better than Elder Low ever did at that stage. But beyond that – they are committed, diligent elders. They are so competent and strong.
We also run into the Japanese native missionaries who are here from Japan to get their training. It looks like we have about 10 of them right now and they are so nice and kind. Most of them are the only members in their family, most likely joining the church in the last year or two and come from a small ward with a few dozen members in it. Then they land on this campus and become part of this huge operation for three weeks. Like us, they are amazed at what they experience.
One of the most amazing things we like to watch is when classes end for the young missionaries at 9pm every night. They walk out of the huge classroom buildings onto the big courtyard and socialize with each other for a half hour. It’s a huge multinational, multilingual mingle. Hundreds of them, making friends from all over the world. Some are trying to talk to each other with hand gestures since they speak such different languages. They share email addresses, sing the same song together in different languages, laugh, and hug. It’s amazing to watch. A few nights ago a dozen elders from Fiji stood in a circle and sang hymns in a ‘Hakka’ dance style. The first night we watched this happen we both got emotional and stood and stared with tears.
Our classes this week have focused on learning Preach My Gospel. There are 8 couples in our district and we’ve been so impressed with each of them. One couple is going to serve in the Sioux Indian Nation. They’ll be living in a single-wide trailer in the middle of nowhere on the South Dakota prairie, 7 hours away from the mission headquarters. Another couple is headed to Durban, South Africa and the sister in that couple has a twin sister who also entered the MTC with her husband on the same day. Both sisters decided with their husbands to go on a mission and both were called to South Africa. It’s clear they did their shopping together because they usually wear the same clothes and we keep getting them mixed up.
Another couple is here starting their fifth mission together. They’ve already served all over the world, from Mongolia to London. Another couple is a former mission president. They were released in June and immediately applied to leave and serve again. Another couple is headed to Croatia. Their former stake president is now the mission president over there and called and asked for their help. So they’ve been doing intensive Croatian study via zoom for 8 hours a day for the last three months. We’re amazed to watch them speak with the Croatian elders and sisters like they were natives. When asked to pray, they pray in Croatian.
We feel humbled and outclassed by all of these couples.
This truly is a marvelous work, and a wonder.
During class on Wednesday, our teacher taught us that one of the important privileges and blessings missionaries have is the authority to promise blessings. She told us we should always promise blessings to those we meet. Then she said, “So now we’re going to practice doing that,” and assigned us to go outside, find some missionaries, get to know them, and Promise a Blessing to them. “You have 15 minutes. Go.”
You know Saori – the task-oriented one. She immediately rushed outside, dragging Chris behind her. “Come, we’ve only got 15 minutes. We’ve got to get this done.”
We first went to the laundry room. Hundreds of washing machines with missionaries occupied doing laundry. Not a great situation to promise blessings, so we thought that wouldn’t work. So we went upstairs. The hallways were empty, everybody was in class. Saori starting running, looking for somebody, anybody. “We’ve only got 12 minutes!”
To be honest, Elder Low hates these kind of exercises and unenthusiastically followed her. We eventually wound up outside and saw two young elders walking toward us. Saori stopped them and asked how they’re doing. Elder Cole glumly looked at us and said they’d just come from the travel office, and since there’s been a mixup with his passport, it looks like he’s going to have to be reassigned to a different mission. Apparently his application got lost or done wrong, and if he didn’t get it back by that day, they’ll have to send him somewhere else besides Chile.
Elder Low told him how we’ve struggled with our visa for Japan and then turned to Sister Low.
“Sister Low, do you have something to promise this elder?”
Saori looked him in the eye, shook his hand, and said, “Elder, I promise you that you’ll get your passport.”
Then we dashed back to class with 5 minutes to spare. For a minute Saori felt accomplished but as we were walking into the classroom she turned to Chris, looking shocked and said, “Wait a minute. What if he doesn’t get his passport?”
“Too late for that, you’ve already promised.”
She walked into the classroom and asked all the missionaries in our district to pray for Elder Cole’s passport. Two hours later, as we left for lunch, Elder Peterson gave the closing prayer and prayed for Elder Cole. Then we left for lunch.
When we finished our lunch in that massive, overcrowded cafeteria, Saori decided to go see what they had for dessert while Chris waited. A few minutes later Chris saw Saori coming back through the crowd, carrying two pieces of pie, with tears running down her face.
“You won’t believe it. You won’t believe it. I just ran into Elder Ingram.”
“Who’s Elder Ingram?”
“You know! He’s Elder Cole’s companion. Remember? Elder Cole is at the travel office right now, signing his passport. It just came in.”
Apparently when they broke for lunch, Elder Cole decided to go check at the travel office one more time, and his passport was waiting for him. Elder Ingram hugged Saori when he told her.
“Thank you so much Sister Low.” But Saori wondered what she had done.
So we both sat there and cried while eating the chocolate pie.
Power and Authority.
We have more training all next week and we’re really looking forward to it.
We do have one thing that we need help on. We were told yesterday that we still have visa issues and that our visa may not be here for another month or later. If you are a person who believes in prayer, would you join us in praying that our visa will come? We are ready to go and really need that visa in order to get started. To our family – please pray for us. To our wonderful grandchildren – please pray for Grandma and Grandpa. We love you and know if you pray for your grandparents, Heavenly Father will hear you.
That’s it for this week, but there’s more to come.
We love you all,
Elder and Sister Low
Elder & Sister Low 