Russell and Eileen's Church Missions: At the MTC

On Sunday April 17^th, we were both formally set-apart as full-time missionaries by our stake president Michael Strong. Three of our children and their families were there with us. It was a spiritual experience and a wonderful way to start our mission.

We knew that leaving our family this time would be more difficult than when we left to serve in Indonesia. As our thirteen grandchildren have grown older it seems that we have developed closer relationships with them. We will dearly miss our children and grandchildren. We wanted our grandchildren to remember us and understand why we are serving a mission. Eileen spent a lot of time prior to our leaving preparing individualized picture books for each grandchild. She had pictures from birth to the present time showing photos of them interacting with us and other family members. It included a letter for each grandchild at the end of the book explaining why we are serving a mission and the importance of serving God and our fellowman. We also shared our love for them and our hopes and desires for them for their future.

On Monday April 18th we entered the Missionary Training Center (“MTC”) in Provo, Utah for two weeks of training. During the first week all senior missionaries are instructed in how to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had multiple opportunities to practice teaching various aspects to both members and non-members of the church.

At lunch one day, Eileen leaned over to me and said, “The Sister sitting across from us is going to serve in an office in the Philippines.” I immediately knew that this was one of the two sisters/siblings who I spoke about in my homecoming talk after our last mission. I asked the Sister if she was happy with her call. She said she was 95% thrilled and 5% terrified. I told her that I was involved with her call and about the circumstances surrounding her call. She thanked me for telling her and she was anxious to tell her sister who was called to serve with her. For both of us it was one of those “tender mercies;” for her to know how her call came about and for me to know she was pleased with her call.

During our second week in the MTC we were taught basic welfare/humanitarian service principles. The primary goal is relieving the suffering of the poor and needy through teaching principles of self-reliance, rendering service and promoting sustainable projects. While simply providing necessary food and supplies in times of crisis is very appropriate, our efforts in non-emergency situations are to be focused on teaching people “to fish” rather than just giving them “a fish” to eat. In our group there were five other couples. They are going to serve in the Dominican Republic, The Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa/Zimbabwe, Montenegro and Mainland China.