The Trapani's in Timor Leste

 Sleep over time at grandma and grandpa's.  Thanksgiving Day portrait.  All of the family were here except for Melissa's husband Jim.  All the children were nice enough to gather to see Cheryl and I off on our mission.  Even my mother ,Mark and his wife Ann were able to visit on Thanksgiving Day.  It makes leaving easier having a nice send off.  Brock, Corbin and I went on three bike rides.  On this one we are climbing the hill to the Catholic church by highway 50 Bike ride behind Pleasant Grove school Melissa and Fern were dropped off at the Airport on Friday morning at about 530.  They made the trip all away from Washington, DC.  Melissa is due in January so the trip was no small sacrifice.

Sunset Our instructor Jessica McGovern and the head of the English Language Center and Dr. James Hartshorn Cheryl teaching the ESL class Cheryl teaching the ESL class Cheryl and I in front of the English training building Lee teaching the ESL class For the past 4 days we traveled from the MTC to the English Language Center on the Provo campus to receive instructions on teaching English as a second language. We received individualized instruction from  Jessica McGovern who is an instructor at the center. She has been there for several years and has several duties there including teaching and mentoring BYU students who want to become ESL instructors.  She also works on and direct special projects at the school. The most challenging part of the training was on day 3 when Cheryl and I had to teach two of the classes. The first class we taught without the session being recorded. The second class was recorded and then critiqued by the head of the

Cheryl and I went for a run today with Del Ence. We did a trial run along the base of the mountains. This is the view from rmtc apartment Window. It snowed a few nights ago and cover the tops of the mountains. Today it was in the upper 50s.

We met with Dale and Jennifer today. She picked us up from the MTC and gave us a tour of their new home. It has a beautiful view of Provo. We ten went and visited Dale at his work. He works for BYU in the media Department. He gave us a tour of the building and all of the Broadcasting areas and equipment While we were on the tour of the BYU Media Center we ran into James Perry.  He and his wife just had a baby a few months ago. He informed us his older brother Troy got married a few months ago. In front of the MTC they have about 20 flag poles displaying the countries that missionaries are sent to. The flags are rotated periodically so that all are displayed. Cheryl and I attended the Provo City Temple today. It originally was the Provo Tabernacle and was remodeled. Very beautiful building. Many levels and stairs. Much of the original architecture was preserved. At breakfast today we met Kristen Raphael. She is from our Ward and will be serving in Cape Verde. She s

Cheryl and the church office building. We had two lunches in the office building basement cafeteria. Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Formerly the Hotel Utah. We had all of our humanitarian training here in one of the conference rooms. Today was our last day of humanitarian training. We spent the entire morning and noon time with brother Matt Gardner. He is in charge of Vision projects throughout the world. His job during the day was to teach us how to use the humanitarian computer tracking system. Yesterday while trying to find the cafeteria in the church office building we bumped into a brother Cavanaugh who works with Mission presidents in the church office building. He asked us if we would like a tour of the senior missionary Department including the area where all missionaries are assigned. Today we met up with him and he gave us a very nice a tour through out one of the floors of the office building. Many years ago he was a chiropractor in the Folsom area. Since then he

View of Salt Lake Temple from the Hotel Utah Grand piano in the lobby of the Joseph Smith building We arrived at the train station with a busload of missionaries. We met brother and sister fox in the mission home. They are on their way to a mission in England Today was our first day of humanitarian training. We took a train from Provo to Salt Lake City. We were then picked up by brother and sister Walton who are the coordinators for senior missionaries. They then dropped us off and Welfare Square. We were meant by Bryant Pankratz who is one of the directors of the services there. He gave us some training and then a tour throughout the facility. We visited Deseret Industries, The Granary the Dary area and the Deseret Industries store. We didn't travel to the Joseph Smith building which is the converted Hotel Utah. We had a wonderful lunch. Beef Wellington with a delicious chocolate pie dessert. We then heard from Steve Peterson who is the head of welfare service

Fast and testimony meeting Today we attended a remarkable fast and testimony meeting. It was with missionaries from foreign countries who will be assigned missions in the United States. They came to the mission home already knowing how to speak English . They are in the mission home for only 3 weeks. When they bore their testimonies they did it in English and they announced the countries they were from. The countries were Paraguay, Indonesia, Philippines, Venezuela, Fiji, Brazil, Montreal Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Japan and Haiti. They were remarkable. They all appeared to be very bright and very mature in there gospel understanding and application. A lot of them were assigned to serve throughout California. One of them will be speaking Creole in Florida. One of the missionaries from the Philippines will be serving in our home mission in Sacramento.

We served in the Provo temple Afternoon run on BYU campus We will be there in 1 month I ran up Rock canyon.  Easy to tell how it got it's name

Picture of the new MTC building at night. All of the younger missionaries being trained late into the evening Picture of Ruth in the new MTC The Wrights, who we gave a practice lesson to Our MTC distric  Picture of Moses on new MTC building Picture of the brother of Jared making stones to give light Martha prepairing a feast for the Savior Today was the last day of our MTC preach my gospel training. The highlight of today was that we had to interview and then prepare a lesson for a couple that had volunteered to come in. We were assigned the Wrights. They are a couple locally here from Provo. He is a retired judge from Long Beach. We ended up giving them a lesson and a challenge to increase their Temple and family history work. It went well. They seem to be appreciative of the insights and message we gave them We were tired after the day as as were our fellow senior missionary couples. It has been a very busy and demanding week. The training o

 Group picture 1 of our senior missionary group.  Group picture two of our senior missionary group. Cheryl and I are the fifth from the right  Picture from the center of the MTC Training Center. We were partnered with the Gibsons to practice teaching. We're getting used to spending all day in the classroom. The morning was devoted to using the churches media and and scripture apps. In the afternoon Cheryl and I did another practice teaching appointment. It went well. The second time was easier than the first. The meals have been a lot of fun. Usually we set with other missionary couples. Everyone is uniquely interesting. Today we had lunch with two sisters that were going to Salt Lake City to work in the family history Department. Both were widowed. Both were probably in their mid-to-late er70s. It's remarkable that they would be so adventurous at this time in life. At dinner time we couldn't find any senior missionaries to set by so we ate dinner with some y

 One of two rows of washers and dryers in the laundry room  Cheryl and I in front of the missionary statue  This is our mission home District. The couples are the Hulmes and the Abrams. I am the district leader  The Gibsons are the couple that we practice teaching with. Scenic view from the middle of the missionary campus Missionary Training has been rigorous. The style is small group participation. We do a lot of discussing and role-playing. This first week is General Missionary Training with an emphasis on effective teaching. We have practiced preparing and presenting lessons. We've worked on listening skills. There is been a great deal of emphasis and discussion on having all of the teaching being very Christ centered and focused. Today Cheryl and I had to prepare and present a 20 minute lesson to our teaching Partners the Gibson's. We think it went well. Cheryl and I equally participated. All of the senior missionary stay together as a group. Even though