Dear Family and Friends, We have finished doing our Preach My Gospel Training in the MTC and so on Monday we start working in the Church Office Building in Salt Lake. We report each day at 8:30 for training on the use of the equipment until 3:30. We are staying in Provo and will be driving back and forth each day. It has been an amazing week. Hard and scary, but so worthwhile. If you haven't had a chance to read the Preach My Gospel manual I would encourage you to do so. Such great information about sharing the important message of Jesus Christ. I have written little notes to myself each day so I can share with you some of the things we are learning. Last week I shared the MTC experience but there is so much more to being here than I can ever explain. Our first day the Mission President of the missionary training center got up and visited with us for a while. He made a very profound statement that touched my heart. He reminded us that "we are not leaving our grandkids--we are leading them." What a wonderful perspective for Grandpa and me. If serving this mission helps each of our grandchildren know how great this is because we went first, then I definitely believe there is nowhere else we should be. On Tuesday evening Elder Clarke spoke to over 2,500 missionaries, including us. He asked all of the senior missionaries to stand. He then said, "I couldn't say why all of you young missionaries were going on a mission--but I can tell you why all the senior missionaries were--because they all love the Lord." Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized that I did love Him and I want to tell Him that by my actions. I looked at Grandpa and he too was emotional at the impact of that statement.
We have met so many wonderful people this past week. We had about 60 couples and 4 singles sisters this week. We met a wheat/corn farmer and his wife from Oregon who are on their second mission going to North Carolina. They are serving a six month mission. The crops had just gotten finished and his son was harvesting them when they left for the MTC. When they finish in six months they will get home in time for him to help plant for next summers crop. What humble great people. They were leaving behind 8 children and a large number of grandchildren. We also sang Happy Birthday to an Elder who was turning 81 (and he and his wife had already serve 7 missions). Another couple was celebrating their 45th anniversary in the MTC. We met missionary couples who were leaving to numerous stateside missions and then others who are going to Russia, England, Scotland, the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Tonga, Sweden, and Italy, to name a few. One of our teachers was a beautiful young woman who returned from Russia and who is originally from Thousand Oaks. She was so excited when she found out we were going to the New Hampshire Manchester mission, because her little brother just got called to the same mission and is reporting to the MTC next week. I talked last week about the TRC (torturing retired couples) and it was definitely not an easy task. The first man we met was named Ray. He seemed to be in his late 70s and was so good at the role play that I was sure we ruined him forever! What we do is spend about 15 minutes learning as much as we can about the person and then with that knowledge we decide what gospel message would be most helpful to him. We decided it was the Plan of Salvation. He was receptive but man, it was hard. The next day we went back in and this time we met a beautiful lady who was originally from Scotland. What a different experience that was. It is so amazing that we are role playing and yet the spirit was so strong throughout the whole experience. When we finished with Sister Milligan we were able to visit a few minutes and found out that her son use to be the CEOor CFO of Build a Bear and decided that he wanted to do something different after 20 years with the company. He is now in (you guessed it) New Hampshire and was just called as a branch president. Just so you don't think we don't have fun, I want you to know that our morning teacher made us all get up and we did the Bolly Dance (our instructor used to be an International Folk Dancer). We were all moving and grooving.
I know this is long, but so much is going on. I have a joke for the grandkids that we heard. Why did the Lamanites always have bloody knees? Because they always have Nephites!
In closing I would like to share with you Grandpa and my scripture that we plan to have as a reminder of why we are here. It is from the Doctrine and Covenants Section 64:33. "Wherefore be not weary in well doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." This is a great work we are a part of. We were each told that we were going to be the answer to someone's prayer. I know that is true. We love each of you and pray for you each day. Please pray for us as well, as we work hard to stay busy and achieve great things. I won't be writing for two weeks, so hopefully this epic journal entry will not be overwhelming! Love, Elder and Sister Duncan, Mom and Dad, and best of all Grandpa and Grandma.
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