It's official. It's really happening. Here's us when we checked in at the MTC:



When we arrived they told us we would be staying at the Marriott because they didn't have enough rooms in the couples dorm for all of the couples presently there. They are building some more dorms, but they're not finished yet. I didn't even know they had dorm rooms at the Marriott Center. However, the map they gave us showed the Marriott Hotel in downtown Provo. We thought how nice it was that we'd be pampered a little before we leave. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time in the room because we had a FULL schedule at the MTC and then "homework" and Russian study. After the the sessions with the other Senior Couples were done we'd eat a quick dinner and then hurry to a devotional or to meet with our Russian tutor for a couple of hours. We love Sister Cropper. She recently served a mission in Novosibirsk and answered all sorts of questions for us, both about Russian as well as Russia in general. We asked her to go with us to help until our Russian gets better. She said she'd love to, but he has a test next week that she can't miss. We'll have to get by with our smiles until our language skills kick in.

We got to come home Friday night and spend the weekend with family and packing and watching General Conference. Now the real adventure begins!

By the way, the ticker at the top of the blog is for when we actually get to Novosibirsk (or as close as we could guess we'd get there). I guess technically our mission started when we got to the MTC.

Stay tuned!