The Missionary Training Center (MTC) is an amazing experience. Already the day after our arrival Elder Jeffrey R Holland came and spoke to us with such spiritual power, that I could only fail in trying to describe it and that was just the beginning. Everyone that spoke to us there had something of value and the whole experience was a tour-de-force of spiritual input. The MTC experience is like the most spiritual and powerful General Conference ever.
All the foreign missionaries (and I am one of them) were allowed on a field trip to visit Temple Square in Salt Lake City and go through an endowment session in the SLC Temple. We toured the temple grounds, the Family History Center, the Conference Center, the Salt Lake Tabernacle with that awesome old organ that has a total of 11,700 pipes. We also visited Welfare Square, where the church organizes emergency and disaster relief efforts for those in need all over the world.
Being here is quite the contrast when coming from Canada or Denmark, where my Mom had to travel to Calgary, Alberta from Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada and my Dad had to travel to Switzerland from Denmark and to attend the temple when they were my age. Although the travel times improved dramatically when the temples in Stockholm and Seattle were built, the new temples in Copenhagen and Vancouver, BC really suggests the exiting growth that has been happening worldwide since then. But, here in Utah Valley things are a little different. Going the short distance from Provo to Salt Lake City, I passed three and saw a total of five temples on a stretch of approximately fifty miles.
Being a missionary is quite the amazing experience. I love it and I am grateful to you for giving me the chance to grow up in the church and to learn what essentially has allowed me here on this experience and at this point in life. Thank you.
I would like to write more but I 'm running out of time.
Love,
Elder Jepsen
