A Fur Hat and A Missionary Badge

We arrived at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. We’re thankful to serve in the Baltic Mission, as we start our journey today. 

Side note, a retired wildlife biologist in our district identified my fur hat as Artic Fox. It's fur turning from summer to winter, hence, the white fur with brown tips. Love knowing this.

We woke to a fresh blanket of snow at the MTC here in Utah. Unlike most missionaries here, these young LDS missionaries are bronze and are riding bikes throughout the world that symbolizes dedicated missionary work.

Our Senior Missionary group is the largest of the year, about 70 couples and 7 single sisters arrived at the MTC on Monday. Some of the places these couples are reporting to are Spain, South Africa, Australia, India, Zambia, New Zealand, Italy, Brazil, Cape Verde, England, Bosnia, Trinidad, Panama, Guatemala and so many other far reaching countries. We are thrilled there so many volunteers to give of their time for eighteen months. The senior missionary force right now for the Church is about half of what it was pre-pandemic roughly 25,000.

No one can tell us the exact number of junior missionaries here at the MTC, but I’ve heard more than 1200. Yesterday, about 400 new young volunteers arrived to begin their studies. This small district of missionaries are studying the “Preach My Gospel” handbook. They are studying to be effective missionaries for when they are sent to their assigned area.

After our large group welcome meeting on Monday, we are divided into districts. These are the Sisters in my district. Cooper - Armenia/Georgia Humanitarian, Smith - Abu Dhabi Humanitarian, Hyde - Amman Jordan Humanitarian, Thurston - India Bengaluru Humanitarian, Morris - Cape Town Durban Humanitarian, Capson - Kazakhstan Humanitarian, Sylvester - Scotland/Ireland MLS, Ostler - Dubai MLS. We are excited to be rubbing elbows with these retired volunteers.