Mini mission for the Youth

 Tuesday night we were invited to mutual because they combined all the classes and made a mock MTC. The youth all got call letters sent to them in the mail and they were called to various missions and were to report to the Sugar Hill MTC to begin their 1 and 1/2 to 2 hour mission. When they arrived at the Sugar Hill MTC they received nametags with the dork dots and took pictures with their parents outside of the chapel doors. Eventually, they were all seperated to their respective mission and the teachers were the leaders that had served in said mission. They talked about the culture of their mission and the language, geography, food, etc. Then we role played contacting someone and teaching them about the Book of Mormon. It was pretty neat, all the kids who want to go on missions really enjoyed it and it brought back a lot of great memories of the MTC for me. 

As a follow up, the leader that put it together called our mission President and asked if he'd do a fireside with the youth. Last night President and Sister Bennion came and had us missionaries in the ward talk about how we can prepare for a mission now and what to expect on the mission and  how hard it is, but rewarding, etc. It was pretty cool. One of the Laurels drove us to it so one the way home we talked about it with her and she really liked it. Some other kids kind of freaked out because President Bennion told them to start talking to people in person, put away the video games, texting frequently, and begin reading real books. Basically, telling them how they will need to function in real life, he just came off pretty passionately. It think it's because a lot of missionaries come out and they can't cope with the stress correctly. Before they would cope with stress through video games, or just pure entertainment. But now, they have to cope with stress by reading and praying? That's hard. It was interesting for me because I personally don't think I prepared enough for the mission, but I got lucky because I am stubborn and proud enough to work my hardest and not waste my time, so eventually, everything came together for me. But that's me. 

Anyway, food for thought to see if y'al want to try that there.