Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Ah yes we are a "meeting" people.  If you are not going to one, you are sitting in one or you have just been dismissed from one.
Here at the MTC we have many reasons for meetings.  For example, today was fast Sunday and we had sacrament meeting at 8am (and I thought that 9am in Prescott was quite sufficiently early).  At 10am we had a Mission Conference for two hours.  The highlight of that meeting was President Brown, our Mission President, introducing two investigators from his mission days whom he tracted out.  They moved soon after he contacted them, and they were contacted by the elders in their new city and were baptized.  They now live in the same town as Jimmer Fredette and so they bask in reflected glory.  Here in the BYU realm, the name Jimmer Fredette is hailed in reverence, but I hasten to include that BYU got thoroughly beaten in football on September 17 by my alma mata, University of Utah.  There was some laughter produced by comments of the rivalry between the two schools.  (At a later meeting, the speaker said he had come up with an appropriate headline for the sports page following the game,  "Indian Massacre".  That produced lots of laughter.)
This couple stood and talked to us about their conversion and their life in the church since then.  The talks were unpolished originals and quite heartening and spoke to the hearts of all present.  Sometimes the polished teleprompter talks are just teleprompter talks and do not adequately speak to the heart.  There is a difference between giving a talk and communicating with  the audience.
We were dismissed at noon so Bill and I went back to the dorm room to rest.  We later on went for a walk to the Provo Temple.  In fact we walked all round it and I was surprised to see that there is a path all round the temple.  I was pleased to see that new plants have been put in the garden and while some struggle to live others are flouishing.  There is a beautiful rose garden leading up to the temple entrance and I took a few pictures of the blooms.  I was surprised and pleased to see that in the back of the temple, there is a curved wall that has plant hangers embedded in it.  I guess they put hanging flower pots on these hangers for the summer - but summer is over and fall is not kind to hanging flower pots.  The hangers look quite lonely with nothing hanging from them.
We walked back to the MTC campus and we prepared to have dinner at 4.30pm.  There was a farewell fireside at 5.30-6-30pm and so we attended that after dinner.  This fireside was geared to saying goodbye to those of us who are leaving this week.  Apparently they have one each week for all the missionaries who are leaving and in this group there are 462 missionaries leaving this week for their fields of labor.
If you think about it, this is only 462 out of the 2500 who live on the campus presently and a new group will enter the MTC this week on Wednesday.  The place is like grand central station.  Thinking further, there is a lot of preparation for this group to even be here in the first place, for the young elders and sisters, there is the necessary trip to the dentist for removal of the wisdom teeth, add to that the physicals, the new clothes, the goodbye parties, the spiritual preparation they have gone through, the tears their mothers shed as they watched their "baby" walk through the gate and into life.  Let's not forget the myriad boy friends and girl friends who are left behind to wonder what will happen during the next phase of their lives and the life of the missionary to whom they just said goodbye.  I am always interested in human interactions and the ebb and flow of life interests.
I have not had much time to talk to the other senior couples, but each of the couples have left a pile of life happenings to take care of themselves, while the senior couple goes on a mission.  For us, there is our son in law with his health challenges, our daughter who is half way through her Masters Degree in Library Science and our wonderful and wonderous millennial grandchildren.  At least we got to attend Ethan's baptism last December and decided to go on this mission when my husband retired.  Our son is in a group home.
I really wanted to spend this fall making the grandchildren's wedding quilt tops in preparation for their marriages in the future.  Yes I know that Ethan is only 9 this year and Oliver 5 and Lyla 3, but my eyesight is not so good and I wanted to get these done before it was impossible to accomplish.  It is time to hire something like the elves that made the shoes for the shoemaker - looking for a few good elves to make the quilt tops for my grandchildrens future weddings.  I have the fabric in my sewing room and the patterns are already picked out.
On the other hand, our mission is for one year, and surely I will have time when we come home to make the tops and then we can go on another mission if possible.  Some couples have serious health concerns but with medication they are able to function.  However, the scriptures promise us that as we serve, our bodies and minds will be renewed..............can't wait for that to happen.
As I looked around the elders who are going out, we have some people studying American Sign Language and it is delightful to see them all singing the songs.  Their hands wave so gracefully in time together.  There are missionaries in motorized wheel chairs and some walking with canes and some with crutches.  I noticed a few with hearing aids and one young man in particular has some visible things implanted in his head attached to hearing aids in his ears. Tonight at the Mission Fireside, one young man who spoke, definitely sounded like he was a stutterer like Bill because he spoke using prolongation - a technique that Bill was taught last year at Eastern Washington University Stuttering camp in Cheney, Washington.
Our final meeting of the day was the Mission Fireside at 7pm - 8pm.  We opted to stay in the overflow room rather than hike down the hill to the auditorium and then have to hike back to our room for the evening.  The speaker was Brother Allen who is the overseer of the Missionary program along with a host of other pageants and visitors centers.............he must be very very busy.  His talk was geared more to the younger missionaries and he talked about their need to be focused on the missionary work and to forget about girlfriends and boyfriends and family events they will miss when out in the field, but he pointed out to them that they have their whole lives ahead of them and there will be other occasions that they will be able to attend and that their mssionary service will influence many more people than they can ever imagine and the more particular influence will be upon their families.
So, after one full (and I mean FULL) week here, what can we distil from the experience?  Well, for one, we need to use the Book of Mormon as our primary focus as we teach people.  We should carry with us the concept that all mankind are children of our God and that He has prepared many of them for us to contact, invite them to come to Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel thorugh faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.
Bill and I will be doing records preservation in the New Hampshire mission and perhaps we will be able to make contact with people on a daily basis in the area in which we will be working.
Tomorrow, September 26, we will begin learning how to use the cameras that will be available for us to do the record preservation.
The work now begins in earnest.