First let me say that I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That is the actual and proper name for our church. Our church is often referred to as the LDS Church, or the Mormon Church. This series of posts was at the request of some of my friends on Facebook. You can read more about that here–on my Landing Page or introduction for the Write 31 Days Challenge.
The MTC or Missionary Training Center is where missionaries who are serving proselyting missions, go at the beginning of their missions to learn how to be missionaries. Missionaries will generally spend 2 to 9 weeks in the MTC. If they are serving a foreign speaking mission,then they will also have language instruction each day so they can be successful on their missions. (Though I must say having served a Spanish speaking mission myself, that the Spanish I learned in the MTC did not resemble the Spanish I spoke in Spain. It served as a good foundation though. However, where I served, there were several different dialects that differed from location to location.)
When I went on my mission, there was just one MTC, located in Provo, UT. Today there are 15 different MTC’s around the world. I suspect that if I were leaving today, I would have gone to the MTC in Madrid, Spain. The Spanish taught there might have better resembled the Spanish I actually ended up using during my mission. It is neat to see how the program has evolved over the years.
Here are the 15 different MTC locations around the world:
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Areas Served: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay
Training language: Spanish
São Paulo, Brazil
Areas Served: Brazil, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Angola
Training language: Portuguese
Santiago, Chile
Area Served: Chile
Training language: Spanish
Bogota, Colombia
Areas Served: Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela
Training language: Spanish
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Areas Served: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, West Indies
Training languages: English (native speakers only), French/Creole (native speakers only), Spanish
Preston, England
Areas Served: Great Britain, German-speaking Europe
Training languages: German, English
Accra, Ghana
Areas Served: West Africa, DR Congo, Madagascar
Training languages: English (native speakers only), French
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Areas Served: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama
Training language: Spanish
Mexico City, Mexico
Areas Served: Mexico, other countries of North, Central and South America
Training Language: Spanish
Auckland, New Zealand
Areas Served: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga
Training languages: English, English as a Second Language, French (native speakers only), Samoan (native speakers only), Tongan (native speakers only)
Lima, Peru
Areas Served: Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru
Training language: Spanish
Manila, Philippines
Areas Served: All missions in the Philippines and Asia areas
Training languages: Cambodian, Cebuano, English, Indonesian, Mandarin, Mongolian, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese (all languages except Tagalog native speakers only)
Johannesburg, South Africa
Areas Served: Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Training language: English (native speakers only)
Madrid, Spain
Areas Served: Belgium, Cape Verde, France, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine
Training languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Russian (all languages except Spanish and Russian native speakers only)
Provo, Utah, United States
Areas Served: Worldwide
Training Languages: 50 different languages
This short video is a peek into what happens at the MTC in Provo, UT. The amount of food consumed made me laugh.
If you would like to watch a longer video about life in the MTC, I have provided that for you as well. Enjoy!
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