Afterward, the families drive home in silence, then curl up on the couch like wounded animals. By dinner they've already marked off the first day on the mission countdown calendar they posted on the fridge. Only 729 to go.

"I've been sleeping in my son's bed since he left," one father said.

This was after his son had been gone two weeks.

Every Wednesday the drama at the MTC is replayed over and over. It has become so commonplace in Utah that people forget the marvel of it — parents giving up their son or daughter for years, teenagers agreeing to devote two years of their lives to working a job six days a week that not only doesn't pay them a cent but requires them to pay $400 a month and gives them more rules than a Navy plebe, going to bed at 10:30, rising at 6:30, wearing a tie every day, leaving behind a car, girlfriend, cell phone, friends, sports, home, family, school, TV, newspapers, movies and going wherever they are sent.

The faithful call it "the best two years," but first you've got to endure Wednesday at the MTC.

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Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please e-mail drob@desnews.com.