Chivalry in the MTC

I went through the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Preston, England. There were 48 missionaries in our entire class – 42 Elders and 6 Sisters. Most would be serving their missions in England, but a couple were European missionaries who were serving in Europe and needed no foreign-language training.

At the MTC, I served as the district leader of the Aaron District. (The other three districts were Ammon, Omni, and Himner.) The president of the MTC told us that as district leaders, we could give rules and regulations to our districts in addition to the MTC’s rules. I don’t know what the other district leaders did, but I only asked one thing more of the Elders in my district: I didn’t want any of the Sisters to have to wait in line at the cafeteria because of us.

There were a couple questions about what this meant, but they quickly agreed to this. For example, we couldn’t require any of the other districts to let the Sisters go ahead of them (we lined up for lunch and dinner by district), but we could let our Sisters line up at the front of our district. We could offer to let the Sisters from other districts go ahead of us. Maybe they’d take us up on the offer, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe Elders in the other districts would follow our example, maybe they wouldn’t. All we could do was set the example.

During the second week, they made me proud. There were eight of us in line, idly chatting while we were waiting for our food. The Elder at the front of the line interrupted his conversation to say, “Elders, Sisters”. Without further prodding or complaint, eight Elders picked up their trays and took two steps back. The two Sisters who had just walked into the cafeteria smiled and thanked us (they were finally starting to accept our deference) and went past. This happened as the first counselor in the MTC presidency was walking by. He stopped short and did a double-take. Convinced he really had seen what he thought, he said, “Elders, I am impressed. I’m very impressed!” I’ll always remember that.

When you know what’s right, stand for it. Someone else may just agree and stand with you.