"Monday and Tuesday were pretty hard. On Monday we said good bye to the sisters in our district as well as to our afternoon teacher. On our afternoon walk around the MTC we had a snowball fight, as we often did. Tuesday morning we went for one last walk with our morning teacher. Two or three snowballs were thrown, but that was it. We crossed the street to where there was a good view of the temple and we all took pictures of the group with the temple in the background. We took a photo of our morning teacher with all of our cameras around his neck as if he was a Japanese tourist. Then we said goodbye to him
"During the afternoon we had a half-day P-day to get ready for our departure early the next morning. After doing our laundry and writing some last letters home, we walked across the BYU campus to a pizza place and video store called Sounds Easy Pizza and Video. One of our teachers had called ahead with our orders. We paid for the pizzas and then went next door to a fast food place (then Hardee’s, now Burger King) to eat – we did buy drinks from the fast food place. Many of us couldn’t eat our entire pizzas so we took them back to the MTC. That night I traded a slice with someone and had my first taste of Hawaiian Pizza with pineapple and Canadian bacon.
"That night Elder Boyd K. Packer spoke at the Devotional; it was awesome. Most of us decided to stay up instead of go to bed because we would have had to get up at 1:00 a.m. anyway. We packed and talked. A couple of elders did some Indian leg wrestling. In one of the rooms we found a time capsule. There were these square metal panels -- like a light switch or power panel but without a light switch or power outlet – and we decided to unscrew one. That’s how we found the time capsule. We decided to leave our own time capsule behind the panel.
"We checked out of our rooms at 2:30 a.m. and took our luggage up to the lobby of the main building. We got our airline tickets and then boarded the bus for the airport. We arrived at Salt Lake International at 5:00 a.m. An hour later we checked our bags and got our boarding passes. At about 6:30 a.am I met my family at the gate. We said some quick goodbyes and the San Jose group boarded our flight.
"As I sat on the plane, waiting for it to taxi, I couldn’t fight back the tears. I realized then that I would not see my family for two years. When I entered the MTC I had known that I would see them in just three weeks, so it no big deal, but now it hit me that this was for real. As the plane started to taxi, the man sitting next to me asked me where I was going. 'San Jose, California.' He said that the church was strong there. We took off and I watched the sunrise out my window.
"We landed in Las Vegas and had a layover of about an hour before catching our flight to San Jose. The terminal in Vegas, with the slot machines, was a surreal experience after three weeks in the Spirit World. We arrived in San Jose at 9:30 a.m. Before we deplaned, Elder Norton had the idea that we should switch our name tags as a joke. So, when I got off the plane, down the stairs and into the terminal, I was wearing Elder Norton’s tag.
"I was the first to meet President Leo Douglas, our mission president. At first President Douglas didn’t suspect anything as he greeted each of us by the name on the tags we were wearing. But then he came to Elder Jacobsen who was wearing the tag of Elder Sanchez, a Spanish speaking elder who had joined our group for the trip. When that tipped him off, our mission president started identifying us by our real names, based on the photos we had sent the mission office after we each received our calls. After sorting us out, President Douglas started laughing, and it was in that moment that I knew I was going to love my mission president.
"We then went to baggage claim to get our luggage. For some reason there was a delay in the arrival of one of my suitcases. While we were waiting these two guys in street clothes came up to us and started chatting. In a matter of moments the conversation got tense, and soon we were having a bible bash. It was then that the two gentlemen revealed that they were missionaries. They were assigned to the mission office as mechanics and were there to pick us up. They took us to the mission office for a quick tour, and then to the mission home for a nap, lunch and orientation.
"That night we had a testimony meeting in which we also partook of the sacrament. For the second time that day I battled the tears. I realized that after the next day I might never see these friends again. It amazed me how we elders of the Foster City District could all become such good, strong friends in only three weeks. I was also a little bit frightened for the challenges that lay ahead. I had done a lot of role-playing, teaching mock discussions to members, during eight months of missionary prep, but now I was aware that everything was going to get very real, and very soon."
The next day I met my trainer and we were off to Palo Alto, my first area. We spent most of the afternoon settling in. I bought a 12-speed bicycle, some sheets, and some food. On Friday we went out tracting and I did my first door approach -- but that's another story.
No comments:
Post a Comment