Tuesday morning I woke up at 3am to head to the airport with my parents. I then had a flight to Salt Lake, where ~85 missionaries were on my flight to Mexico City. We then meet up with a bunch of other missionaries from the East Coast and had an hour-long bus ride through Mexico City. When we arrived to the Centro de Capacitación de Misional, The CCM, we had some orientation meetings, dinner, and got checked into our houses. The CCM used to be an American boarding school run by the church, but when the age requirement to be a missionary was lowered in 2013(?), They turned it into another Missionary Training Center. The […]
Online MTC
This week was my first week of missionary training. Since Covid, the first week has been online at home for everyone because the Church decided it helped missionaries assimilate better than just throwing them into the deep end. Every morning at 9:00 I had a 3-hour long Gospel Study class. This would be followed by an hour-long workshop for everyone doing the online MTC, with topics like emotional resilience, The Plan of Salvation, and becoming lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ. The workshops would end at 1, so I would eat a late lunch, take a short nap, and then play a card game or bake with my mom until my 4:30 language class. This 4-hour […]
Starting my Mission
Today I officially start my missionary service. I spoke in my church congregation this morning, and we had a lot of family come over afterwards. If you would like a copy of my talk or if you want to reach out for any reason, you can email me: hansen.warren@missionary.org
Air Assault and Leaving West Point
I had the week of the 4th of July at home before heading back to West Point for two weeks of Air Assault School. The first day I was back, there was torrential rain centered right on West Point that flooded basements, blew out roads, and left debris everywhere. On the first day of training, we woke up at 2 am to do a run, an obstacle course, and a packing list layout. (There are several YouTube videos that show this in detail for anyone interested.) The next couple of days were spent in a classroom, learning all the helicopters the army uses and how they can be used. After that, we started “Slingloads” where […]
CFT Week 2 and Part of 3
This week was a bit of a doozy. We had some medical recertifications, learned how to use machine guns and Javelin missiles, drove tanks in full-sized simulators, and did a couple obstacle courses. Each of these took a full day from 5am until around 6pm when we would have a couple of hours to eat and get ready for the next day. Starting last Friday, we had our 5 day Field Training Exercise, or FTX. For the first two days of the FTX, we learned about patrolling, basically how you live and conduct raids in places where the enemy might be. For the last 3 days, we lived in patrol bases, staying hidden while attacking […]
CFT Week 1
After graduation I had a week at home before flying back to West Point to start 4 weeks of Cadet Field Training (CFT). Early Sunday morning, we loaded ourselves and all of our stuff onto huge trucks and moved a couple of miles away from the main campus to Camp Buckner. At Buckner, we live in Squad Bays, long buildings with lines of bunk beds and wall lockers. The next day we started three days of rifle shooting, bivouacking (military for camping) at the ranges over night. We had an evening and night back at Buckner before leaving for two days of Land Navigation. We spend a day getting used to the terrain before waking […]
Mission Call!
I got my mission call this week! I’ll be serving in the Salta, Argentina mission speaking Spanish. I have a week of online MTC starting August 21 then go to the Mexico City MTC for 5 weeks before finally making it to Salta, located in the northwest point of Argentina, bordering Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Between now and then, I have to make it through another month of school, 6 weeks of training this summer, and totally out-processing from West Point and the army. Opening my mission call on Zoom so my parents could be with me. My mom was visiting my Grandma, so she got to join in. And Jane was working a late […]
Norwegian Foot March
The Norwegian Foot March started as a way to test the Norwegian Army’s readiness during World War 1; completing it now earns you a badge to wear on your dress uniform. The march happens overnight and has competitors covering 30 kilometers (around 18.8 miles) while carrying an 11-kilogram (25-pound) backpack in under 4.5 hours. The average pace per mile needed to meet the time requirement is 14 minutes and 30 seconds per mile. The course at West Point is a hilly 6-mile loop that is done 3 times. My roommates and I started on Friday night at 8:34 with around 35 pounds each (35 pounds is the standard weight for most US Army tests so […]
Emergency Leave
This week I had the fun experience of learning how Emergency Leave works. I found out last weekend that my grandfather had died from esophageal cancer. The bureaucratic machine that is the army went into motion to get me home for his funeral. On Monday, my mom talked to the Red Cross who helps verify the death for the army. From there, the Red Cross talked to West Point to initiate the paperwork process to get me excused from classes and weekend training. That evening, I spent several hours working with some of the cadets in my company on the “Exception to Policy” paperwork that would need to get signed off by a couple of […]
Wisdom Teeth
Getting my wisdom teeth taken out has been the biggest thing I’ve had to line up for my mission papers. Fortunately, one of the dentists here is also the elder’s quorum president in the family ward, so I was able to work with him. First thing last Monday, I went in and got numbed up, then he came in and pulled them out. Because I had waited so long to do it, it was super easy and they just came right out. After that, I missed classes on Monday and Tuesday then went back Wednesday. Most of the medical stuff here is pretty convenient for cadet use. There is a general practice/dental/pharmacy building right next […]