Provo Missionary Training Center

Historical Background

The roots of the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) go back to the earliest years of the restored Church. Starting in 1832, the School of the Prophets was organized so elders could ‘teach one another’ the gospel and other subjects and ‘be prepared in all things’ in their missionary callings (Doctrine and Covenants 88:77–80, 118).

Since that time, the Church has trained missionaries in several different locations, including:

• The Brigham Young Academy (1894)
• The Ricks Academy (early 1900s)
• The Latter-Day Saint University (1902)
• The Salt Lake Mission Home (1924)
• The Missionary Language Institute (1961)
• The Language Training Mission (1962; located in Utah, Idaho, and Hawaii)
• And finally, the Provo Missionary Training Center, which began serving missionaries in 1978.

Each year, tens of thousands of missionaries from North America and countries all over the world come to the Provo MTC for training. The MTC gives instruction in more than 50 languages, with more added as needed.

Location

Situated between the Provo Utah Temple and Brigham Young University, the MTC has beautiful views of the temple and Rock Canyon to the east, Mount Timpanogos to the north, and Utah Lake and BYU to the south and west.

Facilities

The MTC campus has 16 buildings on a 39-acre site, including residence, classroom, and administrative buildings, and an MTC store.

Outdoor exercise facilities include a large playing field, a jogging circuit, and outdoor volleyball courts. Indoor exercise facilities include stationary exercise equipment, workout spaces, a jogging track, and a gymnasium with courts for basketball, pickleball, four square, and volleyball courts.

The Provo MTC can train up to 3,700 missionaries at a time.

Notes
1. “About the Provo MTC,” provo.mtc.byu.edu/about.