Carlos Mission--Philippines MTC

One of the greatest blessings of serving at the Philippines MTC is that it is right across the street from the Manila Temple, which is always a gathering place for missionaries who served with us in the Philippines Cauayan Mission back in 2010-2013, the members that we learned to love, and visitors from the US. There is hardly a day that goes by without us having a visitor come and say hello. We love seeing each and everyone of them and unfortunately we don't always have our cameras handy. Here are a few of our special visitors. The Wooden Family--Stayed with us on their way to revisit their two sons Philippine Missions. We LOVE this family! The Bataras: Brother Batara was our night guard in Cauayan. He faithfully protected the mission offices, senior couple's apartments and the mission home almost every night for the three years we were there. Sister Batara is an amazing woman, an educator and fantastic cook! She shared her talents with missionaries on several occasi...

It's true we work hard at the MTC and so do the Eckerts, our MTC nurses, and the Lees, our executive secretaries (they both share the duties). But that doesn't mean we can't play hard too! We try to sneak away for a shopping or dining excursion a few times each week. Once in a great while we get away for the better part of a day (we have one day every three weeks where we are between batches--still we have our language training missionaries but the numbers go from over 100 to less than 20) And once in a while we whoop it up right here at the MTC. This was the case when we saw on Facebook that Elder and Sister Lee were celebrating their 49th wedding anniversary. We knew that even though it was Sunday we had to do something grand to help them celebrate it in style. The best we could do on short notice was to bake a lime/almond cheesecake and surprise them by telling them there was a meeting in our apartment. After we indulged, we played The Great Dalmute complete with cra...

Every three weeks we have a sullen day here at the MTC. We say goodbye to missionaries that we love. We are sad and yet we are thrilled with the progress they have made and know they are ready now to fulfill their commission--to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in their assigned areas. Here are a few shots we've taken during our departure days.                                              Our first departure and the Trasks last departure. Every three weeks we have a joyful, exciting day here at the MTC. We say hello to brand new missionaries who have accepted their call to serve as ambassadors of Jesus Christ. We see lots of tears shed as they say goodbye to loving parents and friends, leaving behind their old lives to focus solely on their work for the next 18 months (young women) and 2 years for the young men. We LOVE intake day! Here are a few shots we've ta...

You may notice that I am writing this almost six months late. Since arriving here at the MTC in mid-January we have been running. While our 3 year mission in the Philippines Cauayan Mission was a three year marathon of activity this experience has been a 6-month sprint! I have a feeling it will be like that until the end. When we were called we asked why this calling was a 2 year calling compared with the 3 year calling of a Mission President. Our trainer at the MTC said, "I'm not going to tell you, you will figure it out." Here we live and eat and breathe with missionaries 24/7. And it's taken me this long to finally download photos we've taken and get them organized. My hope is that in the next few weeks I will be able to go through the photos and get them organized. This is the view when we left for the MTC. Snow was everywhere and dreams of living in Summer for the next two years sounded good to us! I jumped into our flight and arrival but feel like I ...

We had a busy Christmas season and soon it was time to leave for the Provo MTC and then the Philippines. Luckily Rudy had lots of frequent flyer miles and so we were able to travel in business class, complete with seats that turned into beds. Going home we most likely won't have that amenity, so we enjoyed it all the more. Even the food it better in business class!  President Carlos had his headphones and was able to sleep some on the way.  President and Sister Trask surprised us with the most beautiful welcome bouquet!  We arrived late at night but were excited to see the apartment where we would be living. Just like before--in Cauayan, we feel to sleep quickly but woke up in the middle of the night. That lasted for about a week and we finally got acclimated.  President Trask and Elder Villanueva, the MTC manager and already a friend of ours showed us around.  Imagine seeing the temple outside your window every day and night! We...

Skip to content In June we got a phone call that would once again change the course of our lives. We had been home from the Philippines Cauayan Mission since July 2013, living in Spanish Fork, working in the Payson Temple and enjoying our grandkids. Being so close to them and near so many of the returned missionaries that we came to love from Cauayan made for a great life. Rudy was working again with a wonderful group of people and I was building a small consultancy firm. Life was good, life was predictable and life was peaceful. But when the phone rang and we were asked to meet with Elder Brent Nielsen we figured something was about to change. Elder Nielsen presented a call from the First Presidency to preside over the Philippines Mission Training Center. Our service would begin in January. We felt a real flurry of emotions. First, we were humbled to even be considered as there are hundreds of more capable, amazing mission presidents who have also served in the Philippines. Ne...