Week 1–August 25-31, 2019,
Missouri Independence Historical Sites Mission

Week one at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah.  The food is still amazing, but it's still fattening. It would be easier if it weren't all you can eat of 15 different choices.
We left Blackfoot after Church and lunch on Sunday and spent Sunday night (Aug. 25) at Chad and Jen's.  We had chicken burritos for dinner, and then played a card game called Garbage.  Grace won handily.  For breakfast we had Belgian waffles, at which time Emma called home on Zoom. Chad was already at work, but he joined into the call from there on conference.
We left for the MTC at 9:45 AM and arrived at the MTC at 10:05.  We spent the week in S2 as usual, but this time in 307.
Our first training was on the conversion process and the steps involved: 1) Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, 2) Repentance (which which happens daily), 3) Baptism (that is renewed weekly as we partake of the Sacrament, 4) Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and then repeat.  Endure to the end means keep repeating this process until we die.

We are in front of the world map where all missionaries get their picture taken. We are pointing to our mission—Missouri Independence Historic Sites.

We were assigned to work with "others." The couple was the Haderlies from Greensboro, NC. They were called to the Texas Dallas-Ft. Worth Mission.  They'll be doing MLS. We came to love the Haderlies very much.
We watched a video for FHE which was Elder David A. Bednar on the "Character of Christ." He said that without attribute of; love, integrity, and charity, "strikingly displayed" the Atonement would not have been possible.  I realized that if those same attributes hadn't been strikingly displayed by Joseph Smith, the gospel would not have been restored.

During our week-long training we visited the new T4 building.  The 12 murals were amazing and have been included in this blog post.

These are the 10 missionaries in our district at the MTC. Elder Larson (1st white shirt from left is from the same North Salt Lake City Ward as the Bertins). The Wyatts (from Twin Falls, Idaho), us, our trainers Sister Freckleton (standing left) and Sister Peterson (standing right).  There were two single sisters who will be serving in the Church office building in Salt Lake City; Sister Balls (sitting left in pink is from Logan, Utah) and Sister Blakemore (sitting right in white is from Omaha, Nebraska).
This was a wonderful group.
We had a wonderful week at the MTC.
After checking out we drove back up to Chad and Jen's to spend our last night in Utah.

Saturday, August 31st, 2019
We ate breakfast with the Harringtons. It was baked oatmeal and sausage.  We liked it a lot and will have to get the recipe.  After breakfast we headed for Thornton, Colorado to spend the next two nights with Scott and Traci.
The beautiful drive along I-70 went through several tunnels and beautiful canyons.  We arrived at 4:50 PM.  Shortly after our arrival Traci made barbecued hamburgers (about 3/4" thick), potato salad, and potato chips.