The last group we will send off from the MTC.

We were a little teary eyed as we had our departure meeting with this group because we knew it would be our last. We will have one more group come in and have them for two weeks, but the new president and his wife will see them off. With that group, we will have had 766 missionaries come through this MTC on our watch.

This was a wonderful group of missionaries with a lot of talent. We were happy that so many could sing and play the piano because it made our Christmas celebrating very nice.

On the first row, the last one on the right, is Steve and Sylvia Peterson's grandson. He is Stefenee's son, Karson Cook. Such a fine young man! He went to serve in Kenya.

One of the missionaries, Elder Kagame, came from Uganda, but was born in Rwanda. (last row, second from the left). He had quite a story. His father was a polygamist and had two wives and ten kids. He had an affair with E. Kagame's mother and she became pregnant. She was just out of high school. She was so young and had no way to care for him so she took him to a convent for the nuns to raise. Then she went to work. When E.Kagame was 8 mos. old, his mother got in a train crash and was killed. E. Kagame's father was a Colonel in the army in Rwanda during all the civil unrest there and during the genocide. When the genocide was about to happen, he got his children, wives, and other relatives (36 in all) and hid them out in a house in Rwanda. The Hutus set the house on fire and all 36 were killed. At that time E.Kagame's father went to the convent and got him. He was 7 at the time. He took him to Uganda where they would be safe. He raised him up and even sent him to college. He came to us with a degree in business. His father passed away last year and so E. Kagame has absolutely no family at all. He lives by himself in his father's place.

Elder Kagame did some work for a volunteer group called Help International. They entrusted him with millions to oversee certain projects for them. He would chart the progress through e-mails and send them pictures as well. Other people they had entrusted before took the money and ran, but they quickly learned that they could trust E. Kagame. They are now paying for his mission because they were so impressed with his integrity.

The way that E.Kagame found out about the Church was one day he was coming out of the university and he saw two missionaries. He had seen them around Uganda several times and wondered about them. He wondered why they all had the same name, "Elder." This time he decided to go up and talk to them and find out who they were and what they were about. They put him in touch with the missionaries in his area and invited him to Church as well. He had the lessons and gained a testimony over a three month period. He said the gospel completely changed his life.