Goodbye to the MTC

Well, we have now finished our 10 days at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.  What a wonderful time we have had.  We have met wonderful people - mostly couples going all over the world to serve.  We have had great instructors.  The food has been fabulous and the accommodations nice.  We have had wonderful instructors - young returned missionaries last week teaching us how to "Preach My Gospel", and seasoned seminary and institute teachers this week teaching us how to present the gospel to the youth and young adults that we will be serving in the New York area.  This time has been really special.  We're ready to go!  We wish all of you could have an MTC experience.  It really strengthens our testimony that we are "on God's errand".  We feel so blessed and honored.  We also feel your support and love, and we go forward with your blessings and we also pray a blessing for you.  Elder and Sister Tenney.

Worldwide missionary effort

It has been a wonderful first week at the MTC! We are truly humbled and honored to be a part of this great work. We are impressed with the 60 couples in our group who are going all over the world to preach the gospel. Just to name a few, there are senior missionaries in our group going to the Philippines, to Malaysia, to Guam, Samoa, to Hawaii, to Minnesota, to Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma Kansas,New York, London, to Slovenia, to the Ukraine, Russia, Panama, Micronesia, Provo, Salt Lake, Layton. Just all over. 

What a great work we are engaged in.

Teachers have been excellent. We gave two discussions this week to investigators in the Provo area and we also worked with pretend part member families. We will be doing a lot of that in the mission field we suspect.

We are happy and well!

Senior missionary opportunities

We've got a question for you, our dear friends and family. What you think is the most common reason senior couples decline the opportunity to serve a full-time mission? (a) health, (b) home, (c) family, (d) finances, (e) pets. The answer may surprise you.  It is pets! That surprised us when we learned that this week in the MTC. 

There are now many opportunities for seniors to serve as missionaries right from their home. In the state of Utah, the church is conducting a pilot program for senior missionaries. In our training group there are many senior couples from the Wasatch front area of Utah called to work from home. They will serve as full-time member leader support (MLS) missionaries, working with leaders and members in their stake or surrounding stakes. They will be mostly working with less active members, trying to encourage them to come back into full activity. They will also do other assignments as directed by local priesthood leaders, including family history, indexing, humanitarian work, and other things. 

This is a good way for seniors to serve as missionaries while living at home! Think about it.

The missionary training Center

Well, we have now completed two days at the MTC.  What a wonderful place and program. From the moment we arrived we have been well taken care of. There are approximately 123 senior missionaries here this week. Three of them are single sisters, and the rest are couples.

We have met several people who know some of our family or friends. Yesterday We met Elder Dunroe, who is Linda's step first cousin. We did not know anyone from that side of the family was active in the church. Elder and Sr. Dunroe are in our district. What a pleasant surprise!

We have two trainers, a sharp returned lady missionary and a sharp returned elder.  It is so wonderful to feel the missionary spirit as we have met senior missionary going all over the world to share the gospel. 

We meet daily in a stake center, which is directly north of the MTC. We take our meals in the MTC cafeteria with all the young elders and sisters. Such enthusiasm they have!

We are presently studying the preach my gospel manual, learning how to present these lessons. Today we will present the first lesson to individuals from the Provo 

area who are real investigators or pretend investigators. A couple recently got baptized through this effort.  That will be a neat experience.

Last night we had a special devotional assembly with Gerald Causse, first counselor in the presiding bishopric. He and his wife bore beautiful testimonies expressed their love for missionary work. They are from France and their English is pretty good. Their testimonies are sweet and strong.

It was wonderful to hear the missionary choir of approximately 400 voices sing a beautiful hymn. 

We love all of you and wish we could share every day with you.  Keep the faith!  This is God's work.

Family history and temple work

A couple of years ago Elder Bednar spoke in General Conference about family history and temple work and encouraged the youth to get involved in this important endeavor.  The youth in the Hooper Utah Stake, where our daughter Cindy Walker and her family live, caught the vision.  They have spend many hours researching their family lines and preparing names for temple work.  The youth would then take the names to the Salt Lake City Temple and do the proxy baptisms.

Their parents and other endowed members would then take these names through the initiatory work and an endowment session.  Finally, these people would be sealed together as families.

We had the opportunity this past Friday to go to the SLC Temple and assist with the sealings.  For one family, ten children were sealed to their parents.  We had the opportunity to be two of the "children".  It was a neat experience.

We can see that there is much work to do on both sides of the veil.  And missionary work embraces family history and temple work as well.

We are now in our final preparation stage for the MTC in Provo.  We report tomorrow morning between 10:40 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.  They'll have a stream of missionaries arriving all morning.  It's exciting to be a part of this wonderful work!

Our mission farewell

We had a most wonderful day yesterday at the Del Rio Ward in Chino Valley, our home ward.  Many close family and dear friends were in attendance at Sacrament meeting to share our joy in being called to serve as missionaries in New York City. 

We do so love our dear family and friends.  The hardest part of leaving is to leave the close association with such dear people.

We shall miss you all greatly, but we go with God's calling and assignment and will do our best to represent you well.

Keep the faith!

We enjoyed attending the Mesa Temple for the last time for a long with our beautiful daughter @ Amy Tenney.  We always enjoy going to the temple with Amy.  We will miss all of our family very much but we are excited to be serving the Lord and the young adults in the New York area.  We leave in less than 10 days!