President Gordon B. Hinckley broke ground Oct. 24 for an expansion of the Missionary Training Center that will increase the center's capacity by one-fourth, to 4,000 missionaries.

He described the building as an expression of faith in the Church's missionary program, which he called "the Mormon missionary miracle."In the expansion project, three new buildings will be added: a five-story classroom, a four-story residence hall, a multi-purpose building for meetings with a new auditorium with a capacity of 2,000 seats. The existing multi-purpose room will be remodeled into a dining area.

The main entrance will be moved from the present one on the east to a new one on the north. All three new buildings will be constructed directly to the south of the center in an area that is now in landscaping and parking. (See Church News, April 6, 1991.)

President Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency, and other General Authorities and dignitaries attended the ceremonial start of construction. The nearly 200,000 square-foot expansion will be the equivalent of eight new stake centers, said President Hinckley.

Hopefully, he said, the result of the training and missionary work will lead to "not just eight new stake centers, but 80 or 800 or 8,000 in the years to come."

The Provo training center is the largest of 13 facilities worldwide that provide pre-mission training for the Church's 45,000 missionaries.

Also in attendance at the ceremonies were Elder L. Tom Perry of the Council of the Twelve and chairman of the Missionary Executive Council, who conducted the service; and Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Council of the Twelve, Elder Robert L. Backman of the Presidency of the Seventy and Bishop Glenn L. Pace of the Presiding Bishopric, all members of the missionary council.

Also attending were Pres. Richard K. Klein of the Missionary Training Center, BYU Pres. Rex E. Lee, Provo Mayor Joe Jenkins, officials of general contractor Layton Construction Co. and Elder Keith W. Wilcox, Seventy emeritus and designer of the MTC.

In his remarks, President Hinckley said that even at the groundbreaking of the center in 1974, leaders looked forward to the day when the Missionary Training Center would be expanded.

President Hinckley cited comments made by President Ezra Taft Benson, who spoke at that ceremony 17 years ago. "We look to the day in the not-too-distant future," President Benson said at the time, "when we will need to expand the facilities to accommodate all the missionaries who are eager to preach the gospel."

"That day has come," said President Hinckley. "And this facility, when it is added to, will not be adequate for very long. I am glad to see this day. I feel profoundly grateful that a need [for this expansionT exists, that there is enough of faith in this Church to send by the tens of thousands young men and young women with older couples out into the world to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith."

He said missionaries are supported, for the most part, from modest incomes. This support, he said, represents "a spirit of consecration almost beyond our capacity to realize.

"I am grateful likewise for the faith of our people, the magnificent, wonderful, simple, powerful faith of the Latter-day Saints.

"They pay their tithing in faithfulness before the Lord and make possible thereby the construction of such buildings as this and all of the other services which this Church gives in this great and complex and worldwide program."

He recalled comments by President David O. McKay, then second counselor in the First Presidency, who said in 1940 that the Church needed a training center to teach missionaries language, culture, methods, faith and the importance and the dignity of their calling, "perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of BYU."

Commenting on the expansion project, President Hinckley noted that the remodeled gymnasium of the current center will become a 40,000-square-foot cafeteria. "Think of that - a 40,000-square-foot cafeteria. No one has greater appetites than missionaries. My father used to say a missionary is like a threshing machine when it comes to his power to consume food."

President Hinckley said the new center would probably not be expanded further. Rather, a similar complex would be added somewhere else.

In conducting the services, Elder Perry jokingly commented to missionaries, "no longer will you have to sleep in closets. You will have real rooms again."

In his remarks, Pres. Lee said the Missionary Training Center "is a great source of pride for all of us. It is a wonderful thing for BYU. . . . We have one of the best language training programs of any university. And a very large part of that reason is attributable to this very effective laboratory."

The biggest benefit of the Missionary Training Center being at BYU, he said, is to be able to serve "side by side with people who are convinced of the reality of the gospel. . . . The one thing that is very predictable is that this work will continue to grow."