Sep 22

September 22, 2006

Shawn reminded me tonight that he and I share something now that no other members of the family share. We are the only ones who spent a birthday in the MTC. All my children called and wished me a happy birthday. I have such great kids. Loved talking to all of them.

We haven’t said anything about our room here. It’s plain and simple but comfortable enough. Of course we have our own little spot. It’s like a good size motel room. Decent closet space, desk, queen size bed, sink and toilet/shower/tub area. Tonight we’re about the only people staying on our floor (1st level) as so many left today for their missions.

We had our last “role play” which was supposed to be someone who was a less active member of the church. But our appointment turned out to be a lady with very real problems. Once she discovered that Robert was a psychologist, she started telling him about her own life. It was a neat experience because here she was volunteering to do this and happened to be assigned to someone who could give her real help. I told our group in the evaluation session that it was neat for me to get to watch him do his counselor thing, because I’m not usually a part of that. Robert said I might finally now believe that he was actually doing something useful when he was away from home those long hours.

We met a couple from Missouri who will be serving a records preservation mission in New Hampshire. Since we have no studying to do they asked if we wanted to eat in the cafeteria with them, but we invited them to go out to dinner with us for my birthday. They’re a nice couple, and when we started visiting with them we discovered that they both went to Ben Lomond High School and that the man was very good friends with Jerry. It was so weird to sit there talking about Sharon and Jerry. They even knew Neil and Joan. The woman lived in Joan’s ward and Joan’s dad was her bishop. Truly, truly a small world.

We ended the day doing laundry in the MTC laundry room. Huge place! Must be hundreds of washers and dryers in there. Now we’ve done pretty much everything our kids did while they were here…except work, according to them.