Mission Training Complete!

(Saying goodbye to Jim's parents for a while.)

The last two weeks have been a most wonderful experience for us. Although we had to say goodbye to Pennsylvania family,(Brittney's family and Brian's family), including Jim's parents, we flew from PA on Nov 10th, then landed in Salt Lake City, drove to Boise, ID that same day, visited Brigham and Brielle's family on Tues. and Wed and by Wed PM were back in SLC preparing for our training.

(World Class Training Facility.)

We have had great training, and what has made it so is the unbelievable spirit that these people have about the gospel, about life and about helping their fellow man change their lives for the good. We truly felt as though we were in the city of Enoch while at the Missionary Training Center, since everyone seemed of one heart in their purpose, and that purpose was to bring souls to Christ. Whether by Proselyting, Humanitarian or Educational efforts...all were focused on making life better for those on this planet and it felt good, really good.

(The "here's where I'm going" board.)

There are 57 languages being taught here, the most of any educational facility in the world and of our group of "Senior Missionaries" we had folks going to Ireland, Whales, Tonga, Hawaii, Africa, Brazil, Cambodia, Finland, New Zealand, Australia and Mongolia.

(Jim and Reenie with Joseph and Alysin Boone.)

Our good friends Joseph and Alysin Boone, who we knew from their days at Dover Air Force Base, are in charge of this facility of 2,300 missionaries. Since Jim used to do a lot of music with Alysin in the old days, she asked if he would sing at the Sunday night fireside for an audience of a mere 2300. I agreed and rehearsed briefly with two outstanding young missionaries, Elder Scott Jackson (piano-going to Mexico) and Sister Michele Johnson (Cello-going to Belgium), both great musicians. Through this beautiful song, we were able to bring a great feeling to the meeting and many made known their appreciation afterwards. Here is a video link of the performance if you wish to view it: "Come, Thou Fount"

We are having Thanksgiving dinner with Brinns family today and will be joined again by Brielle's group for a day of visiting tomorrow, before we leave on Saturday morning. It is still a bit surreal to think that when we land on Monday morning we will be in a new home for 18 months and that home will be Africa.

Also a footnote...we were briefed by the church security people (one former foreign diplomat and one FBI) and they told us to avoid political discussions of any sort while in Africa, whether in a restaurant, on the phone or in emails. They advised us to just assume someone is listening or intercepting, whether it was the case or not, so we will be avoiding asking or expressing info of a political nature while we are away. Surely we will have much to catch up on when we return.

We love you all and will miss you during our brief sojourn, but we know more than ever that we will be very productive in helping those in the Africa Southeast area.