It’s official. Daniela was set apart as a missionary yesterday, and today she started Home MTC. What’s that? It’s a two week program where she works on learning her mission language (Slovak) and goes over the basics of missionary work. After those two weeks are up, she’ll travel out to Provo, Utah, where she’ll attend 6 more weeks of classes focused on the same topic before she heads out to Slovakia toward the end of September.
Tomas did this at the beginning of his mission, but back when I went on a mission to Germany, all of the MTC experienced happened on site. Of course, that was also back in 1997, before there was such a thing as Zoom (or Skype). Having a home class like Daniela’s experiencing would have seemed like something out of a science fiction movie.
I think it’s a good development, honestly. It lets her be a missionary for a bit, but ease into the experience in a more comfortable, less alienating way. When I was a missionary, I went from being a college student one day to a full-time missionary living and breathing missionary classes the next. That abrupt transition was really upsetting to some of the missionaries there. From what I saw when Tomas went through this, it eased the process a lot.
She’ll have Zoom classes with her district (a group of other missionaries heading to the same mission at the same time as Daniela), and she’ll have a companion she interacts with for study sessions. (Latter-day Saint missionaries always have companions, and after these two weeks, she’ll always need to be with her companion throughout the day. For the purposes of Home MTC, Denisa or I fill the role when she’s out of the house.
While she’s here (and for the rest of her mission), she’s generally off social media other than Facebook, regular media (movies, books, etc.), and popular music. As with Tomas, I’ll try to update you all on what’s going on as often as we get letters from her. (Once she leaves for Utah, we’ll be able to talk to her once a week on FB messenger. Still miles better than when I was a missionary, and you could only communicate via letters once a week, plus a phone call on Christmas, Mother’s Day, and (in my mission) Father’s Day.)
Very proud of her, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the ways she learns and grows through this process.