Dusty's Address

For all those who wish to contact Dusty in the MTC, here is his address for letters or care packages.

We would ask that you remember that Dusty is serving the Lord, and that we as his friends and family should do the best we can to help him focus on this task. We ask each of you to read the following advise from a missionary and keep his words in mind when you write Dusty. Each of us can help Dusty have a great experience, but we need to remember that what and how we write can have a major impact on that.

The following was published by the LDS Church in 1997. The words are still very wise:

“Missionaries love to hear from home, especially from close friends. What makes it tough to concentrate is what is contained in the letters. Write about their mission. Share personal missionary experiences you are having at home. Write about insightful things you’ve learned in the scriptures. It’s all right to write about home; just don’t dwell on it. Nothing distracts an elder more than talking about the boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Don’t reflect on past dates or discuss when he will come home. People change a lot in the mission field and at home. It’s best to be only friends. A key to being a positive support to a missionary is to cut out any type of romance in your correspondence. If you are focused on his mission, he will be too.”

Further advise follows from the same article:

"Letters are a great place to talk seriously about the gospel. This will not only help the one who receives the letter; it will be of great value to the person writing the letter. Include copies of stories you have read or clippings from magazines. Write down thoughts or poems that you particularly like. Record interesting or funny things that have happened. And keep a duplicate of each letter you send. These letters can be a nice addition to your journal."

"Missionaries who really focus on their missions are the happiest. They look back at those years as a time of great service and growth. If you want to help in making his mission a wonderful time, keep your letters upbeat and light. This is also a time for you to pursue worthy goals in education, work, or missionary work."

"Many missionaries choose to memorize all seven verses of Doctrine and Covenants 4 about missionary work as a field ready to harvest. In verse five it encourages those who labor to have an “eye single to the glory of God.” This focus on the work makes missions more satisfying. Letters that encourage and uplift missionaries, rather than add to the homesickness, can help a missionary lose himself in service."

Now with those words of guidance out of the way, Dusty will be in the MTC through August 25th, 2008. His address is:

Elder Dustin Howard
MTC Mailbox #120
MEX-MEXE 0825
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, Ut. 84604-1793

You can also visit www.dearelder.com to send a letter directly to him at the MTC or via pouch service when he gets into the field.

Thank you for your interest in keeping in touch with Dusty and please help him to have great two years!

Wednesdays at the MTC

To capture our feelings about dropping Dusty off at the MTC, I will provide a copy of a Deseret News article from 2004:

Wednesday at the MTC is real-life 'Fear Factor'

By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News

PROVO — It's Wednesday down at the Missionary Training Center, the place where grown men weep like babies.

Wednesdays at the MTC aren't the easiest day in the lives of LDS families. Wednesdays are the worst — and, later, the best. Wednesdays are the day dozens of new missionaries report for duty and say goodbye to parents, brothers, sisters and childhood. Ask any parent who has endured Wednesday here, and he acts like a survivor — "How did the MTC go?" he asks knowingly. "That was the hardest ... "

On Wednesdays, the main hallway of the MTC is divided by a rope. On one side of the rope, new missionaries are arriving with their families, all of them smiling. On the other side of the rope, families are leaving the MTC without their missionaries, tears streaming down their faces, eyes swollen, as they pass through a gantlet of volunteers offering boxes of tissue in their outstretched hands.

That sums up Wednesdays at the MTC: A happy day, a sad day.

On Wednesdays, the MTC is as choreographed as Swan Lake. There are people directing traffic in the parking lot. There are people telling the new missionaries what to do with their luggage and where to check in. There are people to show the families where to go next.

But there's no one to tell parents how to cope with the pain. They're on their own.

There's a brief program/pep rally for the missionaries and their families. Songs are sung and sermons are delivered and a brief video is watched. They give you a few minutes afterward to say goodbye.

The faithful will tell you it's wonderful, these kids going off to serve, but right now it doesn't feel wonderful. Those missions for kids always sound like a great idea right up to that part where they tell the kid/missionaries to leave the room by one door and the families to leave by another door.

For 19 years or more, they have rarely been apart, and just like that he/she is gone for two years, or, as the parents can tell you, 24 months, or 730 days, or 17,520 hours, or 1,051,200 minutes. It's not the same as sending them off to college, where there are frequent phone calls and weekend or holiday visits. Wednesdays at the MTC are the end of the line for a while. Two phone calls a year, and one letter a week.

For parents, there aren't many experiences more painful than Wednesdays at the MTC. A root canal? Bring it on. A kick in the gut? Embrace it. A tax audit? Get real. This place has seen more tears than a Larry Miller press conference. There is hardly a man alive who can take it with a stiff upper lip.

Afterward, the families drive home in silence, then curl up on the couch like wounded animals. By dinner they've already marked off the first day on the mission countdown calendar they posted on the fridge. Only 729 to go.

"I've been sleeping in my son's bed since he left," one father said.

This was after his son had been gone two weeks.

Every Wednesday the drama at the MTC is replayed over and over. It has become so commonplace in Utah that people forget the marvel of it — parents giving up their son or daughter for years, teenagers agreeing to devote two years of their lives to working a job six days a week that not only doesn't pay them a cent but requires them to pay $400 a month and gives them more rules than a Navy plebe, going to bed at 10:30, rising at 6:30, wearing a tie every day, leaving behind a car, girlfriend, cell phone, friends, sports, home, family, school, TV, newspapers, movies and going wherever they are sent.

The faithful call it "the best two years," but first you've got to endure Wednesday at the MTC.

We're Not in Nauvoo!

Due to the midwest flooding we called off our Nauvoo trip. We were all disappointed, but we felt like it was the right thing to do.

We decided to take a run over to San Diego. You can take a look at the pictures below, but for a last minute trip it was nice. We really just wanted a couple of days together before taking Dusty to the MTC, and San Diego fitted nicely.

When we got there on Wednesday, Judy, Dusty and I ran over a caught a session at the San Diego Temple. As you can see from the photos, this is a very beautiful Temple and a great way to start our vacation.

On Thursday we went to the Scripps Institute, the Museum of Music, and then out to Seaport village. We ate too much, which is part of the fun, but enjoyed each place. None of has ever been to the first two places, so it was fun to spend a couple of hours at the one of the leading marine science institutes in the world. The Museum of Music cataloged musicians and their music from the late 1800s to the 1990s. It was an interesting walk through time. I think we all enjoyed different aspects of the museum.

On Friday we were supposed to go to Tijuana, but found out that we didn't have the proper id with us to get back across the border. So much to our disappointment we couldn't go. CJ was especially looking forward to bartering with a street vendor. We are going to try and go some other time soon.

We were fortunate to be joined by one of Dusty's best friends from High School. Mike just happens to be working a Disney internship and had the day off. So he came an hang out with the family. It was added bonus for Dusty to see him before leaving.

We spent the day at Sea World. It was Arizona hot there and we all came away with some degree of sun burns. The highlight of the day had to the soaking that the boys got at the Shamu how. That found a seat on the front room and dared to Shamu to soak them ... you can see the results!

Friday night found us in Old Town San Diego were we ate dinner in a Mexican grill that occupied one of Old Town's Haunted, Historic Sites. After dinner we went on a walking tour of the Haunted sites on the old town. Kind of cheesy, but the history was interesting. We sure heard stories that aren't in any of the travel magazines. The night ended as we toured the Whaley Mansion which is listed at America's most haunted house.

We all survived with no other worldly experiences.

View Album

Get your own

Where in the World is Dusty???