Week One

The Great Ohio Columbus Mission

We have been called to serve in the institute of religion program at The Ohio State University campus. The area is surrounded by over 20 colleges and campuses. There are two young single adult wards in the area that we will be attending.

We entered the missionary training center (MTC) in Provo, UT on Monday, 7/11/2022. There were 138 senior missionaries in our group. This is the largest senior couples group since the COVID closures. Overall there are over 1,100 missionaries here at the MTC this week. The majority of them are 18 year old young men who will be serving for two years and 19 year old young women who will serve for 18 months. 

This is a picture of our MTC senior missionaries district and one of our instructors, (he’s the young, tall one!) Classes were centered around the missionary Preach My Gospel manual. These people became an integral part of our lives. We grew to love them and enjoyed out time together. We are so impressed with all of the senior missionaries! A lot of work and effort takes place for a senior couple to go on a mission and many couples sold homes, cars, etc., and will start "fresh" when their mission is over. Three of these couples will be serving in the military relations program of the church and two of us are CES (Church Education System) missionaries. 

You meet some of the best people at the MTC!  

We ran into Sister Perona’s young cousin, Sister Jarvis.  Her great, great grandmother and Sister Perona’s grandmother are sisters. 

We also saw two young people from our church in Concord the first day they arrived at the MTC.  Elder Xia 

and Sister Bell were so excited to begin their missions. 

Another couple, the Cranes, used to live near us in Clayton,

and Melanee Sainsbury, with her husband, is Sister Perona’s cousin and past BYU college roommate. Both of these couples serve here at the MTC.  

We are going to put this scripture on our fridge when we get to Ohio. This is Mormon speaking in the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ:

Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life. 3 Nephi 5:13

We have loved our MTC experience so far, and look forward to more training next week.