Ambassador Francisco Duarte Lopes visited the Missionary Training Center (MTC) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah, where he met with President Kevin E. Calderwood, and with the operational director and responsible for foreign language courses.

This meeting was attended by the Consul General of Portugal in San Francisco, Filipe Ramalheira, the Honorary Consul of Portugal in Utah, Luís Câmara Manoel and the Coordinator of Portuguese Education in the USA, João Caixinha.

The main MTC is located in Provo, Utah, adjacent to the campus of Brigham Young University, and relies largely on the students of this institution, many of them former missionaries, for the teaching of the missionaries who graduate here.

The MTC campus has 21 buildings, with the capacity to accommodate and train 3,700 missionaries. More than 600,000 missionaries from nearly every country in the world come to the MTC for training annually. The MTC trains missionaries for all Church missions and offers courses in more than 55 languages.

Most missionaries begin their experience at the Provo MTC with in-person training. After training with teachers and other colleagues, missionaries go on missions around the world to complete their experience.

The Ambassador visited a classroom where missionaries are learning the Portuguese language to soon depart for their missionary service in Portugal, Brazil, and Mozambique.

- Adapted from an article by João Caixinha, Director of the Camões Institute for Cooperation and Language