Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal Week 2

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
January 10-14, 2011

Saturday morning as we prepared to leave Nancy spotted a drip under the kitchen sink. The more I tightened the leaky fittings the more they leaked so I had to make a trip to the hardware store before we could leave. I turned the valve back on and as I stood up and looked over the sink, there Nancy sat red-eyed on the couch, sadly staring around her empty and faintly echoing house. As much as she desires to serve a mission it was hard to leave the comfort of our home.
The car is overloaded. Not one more piece of clothing, not one more book can be crammed into the trunk. There is an area in the middle where the driver can see through things piled on the back seat. We have sewing machines to mend clothing and a cookie sheet to make refreshments for the single adults, enough books to make a small library, and plenty of stuff that we just can’t live without. I’m reminded how we stepped off the plane when we returned from Australia with four children, a diaper bag, and a didgeridoo. A couple of duffel bags containing our belongings had been lost and came later.
Saturday evening we had dinner at ‘Jim’s Family Diner’ in Springdale with my sisters, Edie, Judy, and Kathy. Jake and Toni were nearby looking at houses and they joined us as well. That was a nice treat. Edie took us back to her home to stay. It happened that Edie had been asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting the next morning, the first time she had been asked in nine years. That was a special treat. Larry, Nancy, and I had our usual back row seats and we didn’t make faces at her or anything. Sunday evening, Chris and his family came over for dinner. Chris shared a lot of information about seminary and the Church Education System. We had a nice last day as civilians.
At the Tuesday evening devotional the chorister casually mentioned as we sang prelude hymns that should an Apostle were to enter the room it would be respectful for everyone to stand. That created a buzz in the senior crowd. Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve, walked in with several other general authorities including Gordon B. Hinkley’s son whom I always give a double take. Elder Holland spoke powerfully about the ‘Preach My Gospel’ handbook and how with its implementation the Church was concerned that missionaries had a firmer foundation in gospel doctrine. He practically thundered on missionaries studying more, being more sensitive to the needs of investigators, and preparation. He made it very clear that we will never be the same after serving a mission nor can we go back to being what we once were.
With that, Nancy and I are experiencing a little culture shock. It’s not that we were not religious but we feel a little like we have joined a monastery full of exuberantly friendly monks. There are no vows of silence here for sure, people are so friendly that sometimes we look for a quiet corner in the cafeteria. I think our faces have some new wrinkles from smiling all the time. But on the other hand, we found Elder Ang in the cafeteria sitting by himself during lunch last week and he really seemed to enjoy our company. Elder Ang is from Cambodia and he earned his way to the MTC by working “lots a jobs in grocery store and selling things on street”. He joined the church as a teenager after reading a missionary pamphlet. He stepped on the pamphlet in a muddy street after playing ball with his friends. He picked it up and instead of throwing it away, he put it in his pocket and read it through several times over the next few days. After reading it he said he knew it was true. He found the missionaries and asked to be baptized, then saved until he could go on a mission himself. It took him a year to get a visa. Out of the 2500 missionaries here we seemed to run into a grinning friendly Elder Ang at least once a day. He left Wednesday morning to serve his mission in Boston. We can’t imagine a Bostonian/Cambodian accent. By the way, I had no idea that there were so many Elder and Sister missionaries that came here from all over the world to learn English before departing on their missions.
Here we are in the traditional MTC map