Mission Stories - MTC

In the mormon-world MTC stands for Missionary Training Centre (and not Mormon Tabernacle Choir... we shorten that as MoTab) The MTC is essentially a school for how to be a missionary. You go there at the very beginning of your mission, and from there you're sent to the field. There are fifteen MTCs in the world, the largest and most important one being in Provo, Utah, which is where the language-teaching takes place (mostly by ex-pat members or returned missionaries). I went to the Preston MTC in England. Not because I was fluent in Swedish already, because I wasn't :P But I had studied Swedish for six years in school (it's mandatory in Finland) and nobody asked if that actually means that I can speak Swedish. If they had, I would have said "no, I can't speak Swedish" and been sent to Provo. But as it turned out, no one asked and I didn't think to complain, so I showed up at Preston and stayed there for a little under three weeks (going crazy and wanting out at around week 1½ :P) But it was a very good experience and I feel that I needed to go to the Preston MTC for many reasons. So I'm glad I didn't end up in Provo, and the Swedish kind of sorted itself out when I went to Sweden. That's how it is for most new missionaries anyway.

The MTC is... really intense. You start learning how to live like a missionary: you have to be within sight and sound of your companion all the time (even out in the field it's not this intense, you can at least be in different rooms in the apartment), you develop a missionary appetite (:P), and you start learning the missionary schedule: wake up at half six and study a lot, there were classes and lectures of different sizes, you practice teaching (either other missionaries, or volunteers who come to help), there's a lot of eating (and Preston MTC is renown for its food - they have a pro-chef and because the amount of missionaries is so small (we were around 30) it's not mass-produced mush. It's a different meal every day and there's always dessert :9) and the overall intensity of the place makes those friendships that you develop there equally intense.

I drove up to Preston with my English family the night before I was meant to enter the MTC, stayed at the Temple Guesthouse, and then in the morning just went across the yard and tah-dah! I entered the MTC. :P I got a bit of breakfast, got my nametag, then waited around for hours for the other missionaries to arrive. The first ones to arrive were the Americans, who had all flown in together. So in comes six sisters and one albino elder. After the ensuing commotion he comes up to me and asks "are you the sister?" And I say "what sister" and he clarifies that on the drive from the airport to the MTC they had asked the driver how many missionaries were there in the MTC, and he said "at this very moment: one sister." So I was the sister. During the day the English elders and the German elders arrived (and the Italian sister), and after all sorts of introductions and entering-the-MTC faffy bits (talking to the doctor, the teachers, the MTC president, his wife, the office couple etc etc) we were all ready (there was also a nap for the Americans at one point because they were all jetlagged), and we had a big meeting in the evening and were told our companions and districts. We were four districts (named after Book of Mormon heroes), one of which was German-speaking, and one had no sisters at all.

So I was assigned to be companions with sister Anderson (she was a riot <3), we were in the Ammon district and our district leader was elder Webb. We were four sisters and six elders. Three of the sisters were American, and five of the elders were English (the sixth one was polish). The MTC has three floors, bedrooms are upstairs (with separate staircases for sisters and elders), the diningroom is at the bottom floor as was our district classroom, and in the middle floor you have some other classrooms and the LGM (Large group meeting)-room. It's a pretty shiny place (new as well as spiritual), and we kept it clean ourselves: every day after dinner was half an hour of service time where we clean everything except the kitchen.

The MTC is led by a mission president just like a mission is, and as is my way, I loved the MTC president, President Clegg. He was a wonderful support, and I went to talk to him a couple times to get called to repentance :P But he and his wife both called us all to repentance a number of time 'bout stuff, so... It was pretty helpful. Because missionary rules are quite a bit stricter than normal mormon life, so it had to be a steep learning curve, because the stay was very short and in it you had to be prepared to live like a missionary. Though I must admit that going out into the field after the strict intensity of the MTC was a shock, since the missionaries who had been out a bit already were not as keen on the rules as the straight-out-of-the-MTC missionaries are.

The best part of the MTC (aside from the fact that my stay was short - the thought that I escaped nine weeks of that madness makes my heart throw somersaults :P) was the other missionaries. These people are interesting, y'see. It really is the most fascinating ones that go on missions: the strong, wonderful, interesting young people, and I really feel that part of why I was sent to Preston was that I met all these interesting, cool European kids. So I made friends in there (and I hope that thanks to Facebook I'll actually talk some of them again some day... >_>) and really broadened my horizons.

My favourite and at the same time least favourite thing to do in the MTC was exercise. Now as you may know, I despise, hate and loathe exercise and sport, but in the MTC nothing is optional :P So I exercised. Without fail, exercise was always 15 minutes of stretching and warm-up (read: standing around or sitting on the floor), and then rest of the time we played football. And it was actually rather win to play football with a ton of missionaries, especially because almost all other players were English elders. We sisters were pretty rubbish (the American ones were not all equally anti-sport as me, but had also never actually played football) but no one judged. The division was always somewhat even and random, and never district vs. district. And the very last game we played... I actually enjoyed :P So it got something done.

One thing that has its origins in the MTC is the "goodbye forever". We had a sister there who was in a habit of always saying "goodbye forever" at parting (because you never know, you might get hit by a bus?) So I brought that with me from the MTC and was saying it to people all through the mission. So in Sweden it became a thing associated with me, saying "goodbye forever". :P

The Preston MTC is very different from the Provo MTC because of the size thing. So instead of thousands of missionaries coming and going all the time, the MTC has a handful come in at the same time and a handful leaving at the same time, a few days of rest, rinse and repeat. So I was in the MTC with the same 30 or so people, going to around ten different missions (mostly in northern Britain or German-speaking European countries with a couple odd ones like Sweden and Hungary thrown in for good measure). So what I call "my MTC group" is all the missionaries who were in the MTC at the same time as me (to Provo MTC goers "my MTC group" means the people who entered the MTC at the same time and are going to the same mission together, usually something like 3-15 people). It also meant that I didn't have an MTC group in Sweden. So for example, when we had a sisters' meeting at one point, it was an MTC reunion for everybody but me :P