Our first week at the MTC

Before leaving on our mission, we were able to spend some great times with our family. Spending time with our families are by far the best times of our lives. Thank you all so much for being so supportive and loving to us as we head to Turkey.



The only ones missing in this picture is Regan and Miles. If anyone knows how to superimpose them into the picture please let me know.

Our first day at the MTC started with a rush of packing and loading into Monica's van and a great drive down to the MTC. Monica took great care of us. While we were waiting for our call, Duard would say to everyone that he would go anywhere the Lord wanted us to go except Jacob Hamblins home in St. George (nothing against Jacob Hamblin, but it would be hard for him to be in one place for two years). Monica drove us around to our apartment which was in M2. When we started loading into the apartment, we realized that this particular building was called the "Jacob Hamblin Building" . Glad we are not there for more than ten days.

Our room has been hot but with a wet rag over the fan we have managed just fine. The room is also very small, luckily we really don't spend much time there.

It has been a great experience. We can both pray and bear testimony in Turkish. We have made some life long friends here and it is not over yet. Some of these friends will be leaving tomorrow, but most of us are leaving next Friday morning. We have learned so much and the spiritual experiences exceeded any expectations I had. I have loved every minute. I do think my anxiety over being away from my family has lessened very much with emails, skype, and texting.

We got our shots yesterday and today we got our first mail. It was a letter from the travel office with our passports and itinerary for the 30th. There was a note saying they wanted us to purchase our own visas as we enter the country of Turkey. Following that was a note that said, "please let us know how that goes and what we might do to improve this process". So who knows what that may mean. As the turkish say "Gooly, Gooly" (go with a smile).

(Thanks Monica for the great pictures-keep them coming)