Skip to main content

Touring the MTC

A few weeks ago our family toured the Missionary Training Center in Provo.  The MTC has been around for a long time but recently they added some new buildings and they opened it to the public for tours.

I really enjoyed the tour.  I especially enjoyed the art and quotes on the wall which I found inspiring.  It made me realize that I'd like to use that more in my home too.

First we toured the old MTC buildings and then we went into the new ones which provide more space for classrooms, sleeping and study areas as well as space for larger meetings.  The new buildings have more natural light and also have the new technology for the classrooms.  Many missionaries get iPads when they go to the MTC because they will be using them in their missions.  Most of the foreign missions do not have them.

This is a picture of Dan Jones preaching in his native land of Wales as a missionary.

Approximately 22,000 missionaries enter the Provo MTC each year.

Along the sidewalks were banners with quotes like, "Behold, the field is white already to harvest..."

The new buildings have increased the capacity of the MTC from 2800 to 3700 missionaries.

Here is a room where the missionaries sleep.

This is a picture of our family in front of a picture of a devotional at the MTC.


I loved the flags:  35 of 139 flags are displayed and rotated daily.  This helps give the MTC an international flavor as they prepare missionaries to go just about everywhere in the world.


In the new building, they have a lot of really large pictures on the wall that show scenes from the life of Christ as it was recently filmed by the Church.



This is a scale model of the whole MTC campus.  The old building are on the right and the new ones are on the left.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River.  This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize.  This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night.  It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania.  However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet.  I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy.  Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all.  She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate.  Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in.  Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios.  She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities.  One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not.  Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable.  Wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah  She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...
Post a Comment
Read more