As many of you know, Erica was originally assigned to fly straight to Brazil and attend the Centro de Treinamento Missionário (CTM) do Brasil in Sao Paulo, but her visa was not ready so she was reassigned to do her training at the Provo location.
Yesterday (Wednesday 9/4/13) we left for the Washington Dulles Airport at 3am to drop Erica off. She was so excited. She flew to Salt Lake City with a layover in Minneapolis, MN, and then rode the shuttle to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo. As all missionaries do, she left her cell phone and laptop behind so luckily a friend just "happened" to be in the area and confirmed she got dropped off safe and sound at the MTC (Thanks, Debbie!) and even tried to get a few paparazzi shots for us.... but anyone who has seen Wednesdays (drop off days) at the MTC knows that with flocks of missionaries, crying moms saying goodbye, cars full of families blowing kisses, shuttles dropping off loads of missionaries from the airport, and strict traffic controls, that's tougher than getting a photo of the Kardashians. Based on the MTC handling about 3500 missionaries who are there either for 10 days (without language training) or 6 weeks (with language training), there are probably close to 1000 arriving every week.
I expect to hear from Erica for the first time when she has her first Preparation Day (aka P-Day), one day per week that the missionaries are released from their daily classes/work and do their laundry, write their families, and take care of any other basic chores that they don't have time for any other day of the week. We won't know which day is Erica's P-Day until we get her first email - which will be ON her first P-Day.
We are very proud of her for being willing to dedicate 18 months of her life to service. For those of you who wonder what missionaries do, I've attached a video that explains a little about that.
That is the news here until "P-Day". :)
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