Annie and Tom: Setting Apart & Off To The MTC

On the evening of September 28th, our dear friends Alice and Mark Rampton joined us for a special blessing ~ "setting apart" ~ for our mission service. Corvallis Stake President Wade Haslam gave us the blessings.

While blessings and prayers are not generally recorded. Alice and Mark took notes and later prepared their memories of the blessings:

The next day, we were off to Utah and on October 5th we sent the following letter and pictures of entering the MTC to family and friends:

Annie and I were set apart by President Haslam on Wednesday, Sept. 28th. We left Thursday morning for Utah and watched General Conference with Matt and his family on Saturday and Leah's family on Sunday. Then Monday morning, Leah and Luke took us to the MTC in Provo. We appreciate Leah taking the pictures below. We have joined the largest ever group of senior missionaries entering the field this week (102), it has been amazing to become acquainted with where they've come from and where they are off to in their mission assignments -- so varied and all over the world! Many have served previous missions but most are first timers like ourselves. The MTC is an amazing place with thousands of missionaries being trained and all of us being inspired by wonderful talks, intimidating workshops, and shared anxiety over the coming weeks as we soon leave for our assigned areas. They have told us that seniors get 9 weeks of training in 5 days, and that's about the way we feel. Up at 6am and working all day until we collapse in bed about 10-10:30pm. We had one day of training yesterday on teaching from Preach My Gospel and today we all go in to a private meeting with an investigator and have to get acquainted, determine their needs, and teach a lesson appropriate to those needs -- all while being observed so the instructors can "help us improve". We're a bit anxious over that!

We send our love and testimony that the gospel is true and worth all that we may give to it. We listened to Elder Holland's Priesthood session talk (a wonderful talk for all), and felt blessed to be on a mission.

Sending our love ~ Elder & Sister Sherry