My Little Boys Are Gone - Hooray!!

My brother Dan is in the MTC in Birmingham, England and has sent several e-mails over the last two weeks he's been there. Already my baby brother has changed so much I cannot believe it. And today, my brother Rob enterd the MTC in Provo, UT to begin learning Italian and how to teach the Gospel in Rome, Italy.
To me, Rob and Dan are still the tag-alongs in a diaper and training pants. In my mind they are still shorter than me, and I am always just about to take them to Chuck-E-Cheese or Glen Echo. They still WANT to be around me all the time, and still give me slobbery kisses and still cry when they don't get their way. Sorry guys, you'll always be those "little boys" to me.
But, I am more proud of these two "little boys" than I know how to express. I'll miss them, but I could not want them to be anywhere else then where they are right now.
I LOVE you Rob and Dan, we all love you. You are always in our prayers, and on our minds.
The following is a large excerpt from Dan's last e-mail he sent and the last he will send from the MTC before he is sent out into the field:

So, I only have about four days left in the MTC. It's been a wild experience. I've found that I've been writing a lot in my journal ever since I got here. Every single day is packed with so much work and events that its easy to fill out the entries each day. I remember writing in my journal though the other night that I really love the work. It's hard, challenging, and continuous but it's truly unique and rewarding. Ever since I came here I've really been pounding the scriptures because I felt that was my biggest weakness. But Ether 12:27 has really come true for me as I now feel like I'm on my way to being strong in the scriptures. I'll quickly go through my normal schedules for the days here before I tell my big story for the week.
We wake up every morning at 6:30, take showers (which are surprisingly nice), and are down for breakfast by 7:00. From 7:30 to 9:30 we have personal and companion study. Then usually we have class from 9:30 to lunch at 12:30 PM. Then either we have a physical activity for a couple of hours or we go straight back to class. Dinner is at 5:00 PM. After dinner we clean, i.e. vacuum, clean bathrooms, etc. until we head back to class at around 6:15 PM. Sometimes we have devotionals and special meetings, but otherwise we split into two districts of ten missionaries and are in class. Every tuesday is prep day. We get to go to the temple every Tuesday, as its only a few hundred yards down the road. Just yesterday we finished Milestone 3, which was teaching at least two commandments out of lesson 4 for around 20 minutes. We were video-taped this time, along with the first milestone. Elder Duschletta and I taught our teacher Brother Gallagher, who had played a specific investigator. It was a great lesson. Here at the MTC it is all about improving but Brother Gallagher had hardly any criticisms. I know that I still have an unbelievable amount of room to progress but it's encouraging that my hard work here has been continually paying off.

Okay, now on to the real story. This last Thursday we had our first tracting experience. Here at the Preston MTC every missionary group gets one day where they have a real life tracting experience. On Thursday they drove us out to South Port, about 30 minutes away from the MTC, and dropped us off. Each companionship was given certain streets where they were meant to proselyte, and two hours to do so. As you can imagine I was fairly anxious, but surprisingly not nervous. Elder Duschletta was very nervous. He is an intelligent, kind person but he has a bit of a egotistical/scared mindset about him. We've worked through all that, however, and have had a truly successful companionship. Anyway, we were thrown out of the car and were real missionaries for about two hours. It was surreal. We were in a real English town. It was fairly small, rough, dirty, but uniquely pretty simply because of the rustic buildings. We knocked on a door, got no answer, and moved to the next. At this point I saw two young ladies walking their dogs across the street. I walked over to them and started talking to the one closest to me. It was awkward at first as I had to b-line to where they were. The first lady spoke to me but the other walked quickly up ahead. Her name was Lisa Sumner. She didn't believe in God but as I bore my testimony to her in the middle of the street, she stopped dead in her tracks and focused on me. I got her contact information and left her with a number she could call to receive a Book of Mormon. It was exciting. Unfortunately, we were then met with a lot of failure. We must have had at least 10 doors immediately slammed on us as we walked from door to door. Many of the town-houses (not nice town-houses by the way) had already been contacted by Jehovah Witnesses that very day. We gave a few doorstep lessons. One man, who was an agnostic spiritualist, gave me his information and took a Book of Mormon, promising to read and pray about it. I was a little disappointed, however, as we had not been able to get in to give a real lesson to anyone yet. The words that continued to sound in my head, however, were Brother Goble's about how as long as you are doing your best in the Lord's work, He is pleased. After receiving only three numbers, including Lisa's, we found ourselves with only about fifteen minutes left. We were on a quaint street named Land Lane where we had met three stringent Roman Catholics at three consecutive doors. Finally, I said that the next door would be the last as we wanted to finish the doors on Brook St. The door was all black, and didnt even have an address on it (unlike all the rest). We didn't realize at the time that it was the back door. Immediately after I knocked on the door, a sweet lady in probably her 60's opened the door. She had cleaning gloves on as she was doing the dishes. We talked to her for about a minute that the door about our message and asked if we could come inside (as we had done countless times before). She quickly responded, "Yes, yes, by all means. I only have about five minutes though." We were ecstatic. As we sat down we talked with her and got to know her a little better. She lived alone, except for her cat, and she had a daughter who lived in another section of England. She told us that she had become acquaintances with the Jehovah Witnesses who proselyted this area. I realized later that she let us in most likely because she was a sweet old lady simply looking for company. As we taught her the Restoration, however, her countenance completely changed. Her radio was on, and as I saw the Spirit begin to work on her, I asked her if we could turn it off. I could tell that she noticed something different in us. We went through the lesson, and she was greatly intrigued. When I told her Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision by memory I could see that she was nearly in tears. The Spirit was unbelievably strong during the entire lesson. During the lesson we handed her a Book of Mormon and had her promise to us that she would read and pray about it. I saw her eyes light up as she flipped through the pages. She was asking about all the different names in the book, asking if they were prophets. We finished with a prayer, and got all of her information. We committed her to another appointment but explained to her that it would be with different missionaries. She told us at the end that she was glad that we knocked at the back door because her doorbell is broken at the front door and she would not have heard it. After we said goodbye, Elder Duschletta and I high-fived. Her's was literally the last door we knocked on as it was now time to head back to the meeting point to be picked up. I felt a goodness that I'm not sure I've ever felt before. I know that my entire mission won't be full of successes like that but I am motivated more than ever to work as hard as I can.
Love,
Elder Callister