The Centro de Treinamento Missionario de São Paulo
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That's CTM for short. Built around 1990, it is the second largest missionary training center after the MTC in Provo. It is across town from the Area Offices, São Paulo Temple, and the apartment building where we live, about a 30 minute drive on a Sunday. 2 hours on a week day. We go there every Sunday for our calling in one of the North American Missionary Branch Presidencies there. We leave about 6:45 am and return home about 3 pm, so it's a long day. |
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But we love it! The North American missionaries are arriving in Brazil without a visa wait lately and are coming directly from home... no training at the Provo MTC. Rumor has it that Brazil will only let 50 missionaries in the country every month. The ratio here is about 60 / 40 or 60% Brazilian, 40% North American. We have about 30 missionaries (presently 28 Elders and 2 Sisters) in our Branch and it changes weekly. Missionaries above are standing in line waiting for lunch. |
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Pictured above is the missionary coat rack with the traditional dark suits and back packs. The Brazilian missionaries stay for only 3 weeks, the North Americans for 9 weeks. But of course that will be changing to 6 weeks under the new program. Portuguese and Espanol are taught here because missionaries are sent to Chili, Argentina, Portugal and Mozambique from here. |
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Missionaries are such a fun group to be around ... and you can see they like Elder Jones. These two are going out into the field in two days. And speaking of Senior couples.... Even though the young missionaries have been getting visas in a more timely manner lately, that's still not true for senior couples. The Brazil government is constantly thinking of more paper work for Seniors to turn in - even the ones already here! We're experiencing huge gaps in missionary coverage due to visa waits. |
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This is the group of Sisters that were at the CTM during Christmas of 2011. Such a cute group of Sisters! We're looking forward to getting a lot more now that the age limit has been lowered. Brazilian Elders have been entering the mission field at 18 for many years because of problems with leaving school to go on a mission, so the age change for Elders won't make any difference for Brazilians.
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Here we are at the front of the CTM. It only looks like a prison with all those bars.... Interesting tidbit... The first of December we will be the senior Senior couple here in Brazil. |
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Street level view of the CTM with Spencer in the foreground. |