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SALT LAKE CITY — A new missionary training center in Mexico is now open to accommodate an influx of missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormon Newsroom reports the first group of missionaries showed up at the 90-acre campus in Mexico City Wednesday morning. Before becoming an MTC, the facility was home to a private church high school, the Benemerito de las Americas.
Previously, the Mexico City MTC was located in a smaller building near the church's Mexico City Temple. That facility accommodated approximately 125 missionaries at a time, mostly from Mexico and Central America. The new location can house more than 1,000 missionaries — nearly 10 times more. That makes the Mexico MTC the second largest of the church's MTCs worldwide, smaller only than the MTC in Provo, Utah.
Mexico MTC President Carl Pratt said the larger MTC will allow more missionaries from North America, Central and South America serving in Spanish-speaking areas to train together.
"I think it will be a tremendous benefit for all the missionaries," President Pratt told Mormon Newsroom. "The missionaries who already speak Spanish will be exposed to English, and the missionaries learning Spanish will be more exposed to Spanish all the time."
In the Mexico MTC, missionaries who are learning Spanish will train for six weeks; those who already speak Spanish will train for two weeks. Once training is complete, missionaries will serve in Spanish-speaking missions in Central America, South America and the U.S.
- 90 acres
- Classrooms
- 50 homes and two large dormitories that will be used to house missionaries
- Kitchen, dining and exercise areas
North American missionaries assigned to serve in Mexico will continue to train at the Provo MTC, in order to facilitate obtaining visas. Approximately 70,000 missionaries are currently serving around the world, and the church says thousands more will be trained at MTCs worldwide this summer.
The influx of missionaries follows the lowering of age requirements announced last October.
MTCs around the world
Eventually 150 part-time teachers will be employed at the Mexico MTC. - Source: Mormon Newsroom
Buenos Aires, Argentina
São Paulo, Brazil
Santiago, Chile
Bogota, Colombia
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Preston, England
Accra, Ghana
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Auckland, New Zealand
Lima, Peru
Manila, Philippines
Johannesburg, South Africa
Madrid, Spain
Mexico City, Mexico
Provo, Utah