LDS Missionary: France Paris Mission

Last Day at the MTC

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I opened my eyes in the complete darkness of our dorm room.

'Was that just a dream?' I thought. 'No one else is awake and moving.'

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I didn't even think to check my watch as I climbed down from the bed to answer the door. The other three must have not heard the knock because there was no movement as I opened the door and light streamed into the room freely like water flowing through a newly made hole.

"Elder Barker, what are you doing?" I asked in a raspy voice once I saw who was there. Elder Barker was still in his pajamas and looked wide awake.

"Are you guys still sleeping?!" Elder Barker exclaimed with a surprised tone. "Elder Garland needs to leave in like five minutes!"

Elder Garland must have seen the light or heard his name because there was a clamor of things being moved around behind me. Elder Coleman and Elder Pieper both started to move to figure out why their precious sleep had been interrupted.

"Why didn't anyone wake me up?" Elder Garland managed to say as he hustled about to get ready for a long day of travelling.

All four of us had packed almost everything last night, so Elder Garland threw on his suit and ran to the bathroom to brush his teeth without an answer from anyone.

"Garland, nobody else is leaving with you. You should have set your own alarm, noob," Elder Pieper said when Elder Garland came back in the room looking tired but ready.

Because Elder Garland was headed off to Toulouse, his flight left early in the morning. The seven of us going to Paris didn't have our flight until 5 p.m.

"You got everything?" I asked as he grabbed his suitcase and made a bolt for the door.

"I think so," Elder Garland replied as he turned back towards his desk and started rummaging through drawers. Then he opened the middle desk drawer, "Oh crap."

The drawer was full of odds and ends that he seemed to have shoved in there for the duration of the MTC, but things that were necessary. His passport, some money, and a few other less important things seemed to shimmer as if he had stumbled upon a pot of gold.

"Just start throwing it in your bag," Elder Coleman said as he hopped down from his top bunk and grabbed a handful of stuff and put it in a pocket in the luggage.

"I'm glad I came over to say goodbye to Garland," Elder Barker said, who had taken up post by Elder Pieper who was just sitting on his bed saying how much of a "noob" Elder Garland was.

"Thanks," Elder Garland muttered to Elder Coleman after the stuff was gathered. Then he headed toward the door. He stopped at the doorway and turned, "See ya, guys!"

We quickly all gave him a hug and he was escorted by Elder Coleman and Elder Barker to the buses. They came back with snow in their hair and red noses from the cold temperatures of the mid-December morning.

"Did you know the Swiss missionaries left this early also?" Elder Coleman asked as he and Elder Barker walked back into the room. "They were all there waiting for Garland. He was the last one to show up."

"Garland, pff, what a noob. He thought one of us would set an alarm for him," Elder Pieper reminisced. "He would have missed his flight if it weren't for Elder Barker."

"When I got to your door I kept thinking, 'shoot, there's no noise, hopefully they're awake,'" Elder Barker said. "Luckily Elder Abel heard me knock after a few times."