It is official!!!

We left our home by noon this last Friday and drove to Ontario, OR.  The following day we made it to Rexburg with a quick stop in Shelley to see Lily's sister, Denise, and to do a quick check on our duplex there.  Lily also had to sign some papers as Denise's guardian.

We had a great time at Walt and Rosie's place in Sugar City where we had dinner with my parents, and also saw Shane and Louise who were invited to join us there.

We entered the MTC this morning at 10am after spending Sunday night at Albert and Kris' house.  They fed us dinner and we played games and had a wonderful time.

At the MTC, they are still renovating one of the places where the senior missionaries stay, and so we are staying at the Provo Marriott Hotel for the coming 12 days.  We are not complaining.

We had orientation today, and our classes this week will start at EIGHT A.M. !!!!  That will be our 1st challenge.  The MTC is great.  Mingling with the young Elders and Sisters is wonderful.  Very positive environment.  We love it!!

Our Travel Schedule and Address

We will be departing this coming Friday (March 25) for Rexburg, Idaho to see Will's parents.  Will's father will turn 90 on April 4th, and this will be our chance to say "good bye".  We will get there on Saturday afternoon, and plan to attend church on Sunday with Will's brother, Walter and his wife Rosie.  We will then continue that afternoon to Highland, Utah and will spend the night with Lily's brother, Albert and his wife Kris.


Then, Monday morning (March 28) we will report to the MTC between 10 and 11 am.  


We will officially have started our mission.  (Yahoo!!)


All senior missionaries at the MTC complete a 5 day course using the Preach My Gospel manual.  We will then have 4 additional days of instruction in the operations of the Mission Office, specifically the data systems in place for managing all the functions conducted in the mission office.


While at the MTC, the week-end that we are there will be General Conference week-end, and we have secured tickets to attend the Sunday afternoon session.  The kids will have to see if they can find us during the broadcast, in that sea of people.


The Friday after General Conference (April 8) we will be traveling to our mission in Roseville, California.  It is about 680 miles from Provo traveling West on I-80, and it may take us 1-2 days with pulling the trailer.


We have secured an apartment there in Antelope, CA which is located about 3 miles from the mission office.  (They have Comcast !!!!  A Winco is down the street and a Costco is 5 miles away.  Oh, . . . . . there also is a golf course a couple blocks from the mission office.  Life will be sweeeet !).  


We are excited to go serve the Lord, but are also a little bit nervous and anxious about leaving our family, our home, our routines, and everything that is so familiar to us.
We know the Lord will bless us and sustain us as we do His will, and He will help us overcome any lingering fear and trepidation we may experience.


Here are the addresses of where we can be reached.


Elder and Sister Kolditz            (Mar 28 to April 7)
California Roseville Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E 
Provo, UT 84604


Elder and Sister Kolditz            (Starting April 11th)
California Roseville Mission
8583 Watt Avenue
Antelope, CA 95843-9117


Will and Lily Kolditz                (Starting April 12th)
4400 Shandwick Drive  Apt 158
Antelope, CA 95843

Mission Area

Here is a map of the mission boundaries.  Roseville is located at the bottom of the map.

Lily will be the Secretary to the Mission President, President Pendleton, and Will will be the Office Manager and be over the Finances of the Mission.  We are told that it is a busy office, that starts at 830 in the morning, and finishes at 500pm, Monday through Friday.  I spoke with Elder Gwynn, the person we will be replacing, and he said that they frequently don't make it out by 500pm.  To consider that a goal. (Kind of sounds like what I retired from at Toyota).

There are two other couples in the office that are "Service Missionaries".  They live locally but are called to serve in the mission office.  Service Missionaries are limited to 32 hours per week.  My immediate thought was that as "Full time Missionaries" we are "Salaried" or "Exempt" Personnel and the "Service Missionaries" are "Hourly" or "Non-Exemp" personnel.

 I am just glad these good people have been called.  I had not realized that Service Missionaries would be used in this fashion.  I always thought they did part time work like helping out at the Bishop's Storehouse twice a week, or being over the Stake's Addiction Recovery program that meets once a week in our Stake.


My son in law, Jason, is a flight controller at NASA.  He once told me that their job is to manage all the systems on the space shuttle so that the astronauts could concentrate on their work without the added worry of all the on-board computers, and all the other complex systems in the Shuttle, etc.

Our mission is similar in concept.  We will be overseeing the housing, vehicles, missionary allowances, insurance, travel, and everything else, so the Elders and Sisters can concentrate on their work of finding, teaching, and converting.  I am sure we will also occasionally be fielding calls from, and reassure, anxious moms who had not heard from their son in a week.

Can you picture the poor Elder who will have to account to Mom for his apartment cleanliness???


We are starting to identify what to bring.  We have less than 2 weeks to go!!

It is here!

This past Saturday we arrived home from a short trip out of town, and, of course, headed to the PO Box at the post office before even heading home to unpack.  The much awaited for envelope from Salt Lake was there.

We have been called to serve as "office specialists" in the Roseville California Mission, and will enter the MTC in Provo on Monday, March 28th.

Our immediate search on Google Maps showed that Roseville is just North East of Sacramento along Interstate 80, and that the mission boundaries encompass an area from just north of Sacramento traveling north on I-5 almost to the Oregon border to Yreka, and maybe a 75 mile swath East and West of I-5.

We will try to call the Mission this coming Monday.