Mongolia Mission Week 33 - History is being made!

 Mongolia Mission Week 32

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities in Mongolia. It's an impossible task, though, because it's hard to condense everything into a few words and pictures. So ask us individually if you'd like to know more about anything! You can contact us by email (jrose219@gmail.com or krose213@gmail.com), Facebook messenger, or you can text Kathy's phone (515-537-3273). 

We used our preparation day this week to visit the local museum with the young teachers, working to gain more understanding of the culture and history of this area and giving them a chance to see the artifacts. While museums in Ulaanbaatar cover the history of Mongolia, our local museum really focuses on the history, culture, and artifacts from our area. It's a unique and interesting part of the world, and we enjoy continuing to learn more!

The first scientifically recognized dinosaur
eggs were found in Mongolia in the Gobi.

The museum boasts a "Great White Flag" from the period of Genghis Khan. These banners, which have great symbolic significance, marked the border between this area and China. Mongolian banners are on poles with circular streams of horse hair (which has been restored in this artifact) hanging down from their tops. The trident topper represents the past, present, and future.

But history is still being made in this area - we are blessed to witness such exciting times! Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are organized by geographic units. A stake is an area which is a group of local congregations called wards or branches and usually has 2000 to 5000 members. A ward is usually 200 to 600 members. A branch is smaller, with 20 to 400 members. As we've previously discussed, in areas too small to be a branch, the congregation is called a group. That's us here in Sainshand - we're a twig just getting started. Our group is technically under the administration of the mission. Our congregation started with a family just over a year ago and has grown to a usual Sunday attendance of 20-35 people. And history is being made! So far in 2025 we have witnessed:

• our first baby blessing
• our first deacon ordained
• our second priest ordained
• additional baptisms and deacon ordinations
• our first Young Women's class president called and set apart
• the establishment of an organized deacons' quorum

Everyone, especially Mongolian youth,
are fascinated by new babies.

All of these are historic and exciting, but we'll focus on the deacons' quorum. One of the main things that makes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unique is having restored priesthood authority. It was restored to the earth by Peter, James and John, who received it from Jesus Christ, so every priesthood holder in the church can trace their authority back to Jesus Christ. Our lives have been richly blessed by the power of Christ's priesthood. Christ uses it to bless the lives of His children today and amplify our abilities in His service.

Those who preside over congregations have priesthood keys, which can only be conferred with the laying on of hands by one having the keys to do so. This is important. John is the group leader here, but it is a position that does not include keys. So the president of our mission, President Namgur, on his last week in the country before being released, drove 6 hours (each way) to confer priesthood keys on a a deacons' quorum president. The first member in Sainshand to hold priesthood keys! He will use those keys to direct his quorum in their priesthood responsibilities and activities, to teach, and to help take care of people in our area. He is so excited to take on this responsibility. We see great leadership potential in his future, but he genuinely is a leader now, just like other deacons' quorum presidents around the world. 

Some members of our group were able to witness
this historic event.

After this special Tuesday meeting, President Namgur and his son, David, took those of us serving in Sainshand to a lunch where we said our final goodbyes. They headed back to Ulaanbaatar and then left for America on Saturday.

Pres Namgur and David say goodbye to Sainshand 
for the last time. For now.

Overlapping with the Namgurs for one day, our new mission president arrived along with his family. We are excited to get to know them and serve with them.

President Kunz served his mission here when he
was younger. He's an attorney from Mississippi.

Elder Bilegsaikhan had a birthday this week. After English class we had a little celebration with the six of us and an English student who likes spending time with us.

He wanted a fancy car for this birthday - and got two of them!

For our youth activity this week, we watched the Book of Mormon video about the tree of life and then had the youth practice "holding to the rod," which in our case was a piece of string. They had voices of good and evil to help and tempt them. None of the youth who attended this week were members. Most of our members were vacationing for the summer, but we have friends who like to come anyway.

We've found that ties make good blindfolds.

We also made marshmallow renditions of the Tower of Babel.

Also this week, we found what we thought from the sign was a new ramen restaurant, so we decided to check it out. It was new, but it didn't turn out to be the type of ramen restaurant we've experienced in the States. What we found was a selection of 13 kinds of ramen - all in packets. 

We chose two different kinds of seafood ramen from
these shelves.

You take your choice to another room in the restaurant, get a metal bowl, and put it on a hot plate machine that adds water, cooks it for the appropriate amount of time, and there you go - make it yourself ramen in a restaurant. They provide the ramen, bowl, spoon, water, chopsticks, and do the dishes. You do the rest. 

(Hats come in handy when you live in
the Gobi.)

The nice lady who helped us (across language barriers!) even gave us each a package of salami-type chunks "on the house" to add to our soup. She turned on the TV to a show of beautiful Mongolian countryside scenes with some pretty Mongolian music to add atmosphere to our ramen experience.

Ramen is pretty prevalent here. You can get all kinds of Korean flavors, with or without kimchee; you can get bone broth flavors - we have yet to scratch the surface of all the amazing possibilities. Next door to the restaurant was a convenience store whose ramen display made us laugh, though. The store has a counter with hot water you can add to your ramen of choice and tables where you can enjoy eating it. But you have to be of age: 

(Google translated). They even check your ID.

There's always something interesting to find in Sainshand!

Mongolia Mission Week 32 - Small efforts matter!

 Mongolia Mission Week 32

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities in Mongolia. It's an impossible task, though, because it's hard to condense everything into a few words and pictures. So ask us individually if you'd like to know more about anything! You can contact us by email (jrose219@gmail.com or krose213@gmail.com), Facebook messenger, or you can text Kathy's phone (515-537-3273). 

Sometimes we need to be reminded that even though there are just a few of us working together to make a meaningful difference in this part of the world, we can still accomplish more than we think we can. That reminder came as we walked home from the church one day and saw an ant dragging home an insect many times his size. He had a mission, purpose, and confidence. What a wonderful reminder it was to us!

Right after that, a boy on a bicycle rode past. He had to stop and rest because of the hill, so we caught up and asked if we could take a picture of his jacket: "From small beginnings comes great things." (Plus a few random alphabet letters!) Two separate messages of encouragement. We already know that there are great things in store for Sainshand. We have felt it since it arrived in the city. But we keep getting reminded - and we appreciate it.

This is such a different place than the frozen wasteland we found in December. There are many more people (especially children) wandering around, and we can see their faces rather than just the thick scarves everyone wrapped up in back then. Black pants and coats and boots are gone. Many women and girls enjoy wearing dresses. People are showing their toes in sandals. Couples stroll along the sidewalks.

People are out every evening enjoying the wonderful
weather (about 70 degrees). Days are getting into
the high 90s, but evenings are marvelous.

We thought the bouncy houses in the "Family Square"
were for Children's Day. Nope, they reappear evening.

As do the shish kebabs.

And soft ice cream shops!

One Friday there was a birthday celebration for Sainshand. It was a vibrant evening! There were musical groups, programs, a big screen set up to show a movie, and fireworks we could hear as we went to bed.

This looks like a suspicious group walking off into the sunset. Have we told you we really stick out? 

But every time we walk down the street, all the kids playing on the playgrounds and passing us yell out "Hello!" or "Hi!" so they can practice their English. (Assuming that we are English speakers, of course.) Most don't know any other words, but they exuberantly greet us every time they see us.

We have also noticed interesting plantings in the town square area. We can't wait to see what this looks like as it grows and develops. Yet another example of small beginnings of faith and hope. We all know that winter will come back, but that does not stop people from beautifying their grounds and enjoying the summer while it's here.

Around the edge of the playground of our apartment complex, we came home one night to find a tractor and auger drilling yet more holes. These bushes look very much like Korean lilacs. What an effort, especially since these will all need to be watered by hand. Someday this will really look nice.

Every Saturday we have a youth Mutual gathering at the church, open to whomever wants to come. With school being out, though, it feels like the city has emptied. So many of our regular church members or English students have gone - to Ulaanbaatar, to the countryside, to China or Korea, or somewhere. We never know who to expect at these activities or for our Sunday church meetings. And yet we had a nice turnout to play "Minute to Win It" type games on this Saturday. So much fun!

And in news from home, the Forsyth Fire in Southern Utah is on the back side of the mountain from our home. 450 people there (basically the size of the town) were evacuated from their homes and 13 homes were lost to fire. So far, over 10,000 acres have burned, and it is 8% contained. Things are hot, dry, and windy in Southern Utah these days. We're grateful that, so far, New Harmony is safe, and that the Lord's hand is over us all.

This is a historic church in Pine Valley.
Luckily, it was preserved.

 

Our week ended with emotional highs and lows. We had a group of young men walk into church together Sunday morning. Two are Deacons. Two were a couple of Primary-aged member boys we hadn't seen for a while. Two were non-member friends of the group. All six came wearing white shirts. They looked so good!

After sacrament meeting, we decided (like we always must at the last minute) who would teach which second hour class: adults, kids, or a combined group class. We never know who will come to church or what their specific needs will be until it's time to teach. We all show up with broad knowledge of the Come Follow Me lesson and a lot of faith in the Spirit's guidance. This time Kathy taught the young boys while the young missionaries taught 3 investigators who came (no adults members were there), and John set up two adorable little girls with coloring pages. Teaching the youth was an incredibly sweet experience. (Good thing they all had at least some English expertise and that we had one or two who could help translate for the others.) These are all such new members that they didn't even realize what the Doctrine and Covenants is (a special book of scripture that contains revelations pertaining to us today but also features the early history of the Church). 

But when we discussed how the Church began with 6 members, rather like it began in Sainshand, Kathy asked the member boys to explain to the other boys why they got baptized. And those boys who so often act like obnoxious, rowdy teenage boys said things like, "Because I want to be a good person," and "Because I can repent" and "Because it's true!" They were so sincere and obviously remembered with tenderness those feelings they had when they got baptized, those feelings which propel them to church by themselves on Sundays, white shirts or not.

It's such an amazing experience to be involved with the teaching of children of God (of any age) who have so much to learn about basics but know by the Spirit that this is the right place for them to be. And it's inspiring that they have faith enough to accept what we have to offer while they work at developing further understanding. And thanks, Elders (you know who you are!) for your efforts to encourage an understanding of reverence for sacred things. Those efforts are paying off!

On their last Sunday in Mongolia, our mission president and his wife participated in a special farewell fireside. Their two teenage boys performed amazing music and shared their testimonies. They included raw moments about how they struggled to adjust when they moved to Mongolia 3 years ago but are so grateful for their experiences now. It was a powerfully spiritual meeting. We love the Namgurs and will miss them and their vibrant testimonies. They have had a tremendous impact on Mongolia and the people living and serving here! In fact, President Namgur was a major driving force behind the temple announced for this country. The Lords knows what Mongolia needs and when it's needed, and He blesses those who sacrifice to serve Him. 

We gathered and watched the fireside over Zoom.

Mongolia Mission Week 31 - Tires and Transfers or Tired of Transfers

Mongolia Mission Week 31

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities in Mongolia. It's an impossible task, though, because it's hard to condense everything into a few words and pictures. So ask us individually if you'd like to know more about anything! You can contact us by email (jrose219@gmail.com or krose213@gmail.com), Facebook messenger, or you can text Kathy's phone (515-537-3273). 

We'll start with tires. We see old tires everywhere, usually painted in cheerful colors. Remember the school projects we wrote about last week? We found out that the colorful tires we see are often the projects school kids do (and a great recycling system).

This tire surrounds a cement block painted
noticeably blue so it will not be run over.

Some tires act as parking lot bumpers or are just random.

Some tires are decorative flower pots.

In front of our apartment building, people planted
seeds that could either be flowers or vegetables.
We'll find out soon.

These were turned into teacups! It's hard to see 

perspective - just know they are tire-sized.

These tires are used to terrace the hill.

The tires that puzzled us the most are the ones "planted" all over the countryside. When we inquired, we found out that when the government gives people land, they must put something permanent on the land within a certain number of years to make sure it remains theirs. So many people will build a "fence" out of tires. Or they will put up a completely wonderful fence around an area that encloses absolutely nothing at this point in time.

We experienced another transfer week - they come around so often! They are always sad for us and exciting but unsettling for the young volunteers. First, some explanation could be helpful for some of you.

We are always amazed at these young people we serve with. Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of the young people between 18 and 26 choose to serve a mission for 18 or 24 months.  They apply, showing their interests, abilities, and willingness to serve wherever in the world they are called through the inspiration of the apostles. And they or their family pay for this opportunity - several hundred dollars each month. They set aside and leave behind jobs, teams, schools, romantic interests, cars, etc. What dedication, commitment, and testimony they demonstrate! They forgo all these things, spend the time and money to serve, and truly dedicate themselves to living a life on a higher level. 

They have the faith to create miracles. They are also incredibly
good sports.

Young Mongolians get called on missions to preach the Gospel. They serve in many parts of the world and in Mongolia as missionaries. But when young missionaries from other parts of the world get called to Mongolia, they come as volunteers to teach English. Proselyting by foreigners isn't allowed, so they serve to grow and enhance the educational opportunities of, and therefore the economy of, Mongolia. Theirs is a much different type of service. No name tags, no knocking on doors, no street contacting. They train at BYU and then teach English in schools, in community centers, and in churches, and the people are very grateful. They also greatly bless the church congregations where they attend and serve and make friends wherever they go. They teach the Gospel to friends who are interested.

None of these young people choose where in the country they will serve or who their companion will be. All of them, whether English teachers or missionaries, are subject to a reassignment of companion or location every 6 weeks. Typically, they get a new companion after 6 weeks and a new city/area after 12 weeks. So change is constant. They get chances to learn and grow in new situations and from new companions; they also get a chance to use their own special talents and gifts all over the country. You've seen in our blog when we have new young people join or leave Sainshand - we've only been here 6 months and have already served with 14 different young servants.

Gainer, Tumenjargal, Jonan, and Eves
practice a song they volunteered to sing for sacrament
meeting. Their investigator is running the electronic piano.

We love them all and appreciate their examples of dedication and commitment. We also feel blessed that we get to choose our companion, stay together the whole time, and stay in one place (unless we get reassigned, which is always a possibility, too). Older members like us get to choose from 6, 12, 18, or 23 months and have more flexibility with putting in preferences for what type of service we want to do and what types of countries we would be willing and able to serve in. We felt called to serve here and have had that feeling confirmed as we received our official call and since we've been here. For some reason, the Lord wants us here!

Back to transfer week. We all found out on Wednesday night that Roman Eves and Sister Tumenjargal were being reassigned and would leave Thursday. The six of us had a final dinner together, and then we sent the four young people off on the train to Ulaanbaatar. 

We often have group members come to see them off.

On Saturday, the group coming back arrived at 7:30 in the morning. Elder Bilegsaikhan and Daisy Hess are our new best friends. They were busy all day their first day here - even though there was a (last minute!) planned power outage that lasted all day and well into the night. We usually take the group to dinner their first day here so that we can get to know each other and talk about the work in the area. Due to lack of power, it ended up being a dinner at our house where we steamed dumplings ("buuz") on a butane camp stove and ate together by the light coming in the window. Elder Jonan remembered how, last time we had a power outage, he and Eves whipped cream for a fruit salad by hand, and he was willing to do it again. After he had been whisking for awhile, he asked if that was enough, and we looked over and saw that it was whipped stiff enough to almost be butter!

As with so many things, it takes losing electricity to help us really appreciate it. We are so blessed by modern conveniences - running water, indoor toilets, electricity, internet . . . When we do without them, it's a gentle reminder of how blessed we really are. We are learning to be more grateful for the things we have, especially family and friends. We get excited when we find things like whipping cream, but that's a minor thing. We eat well (too well!), and are so blessed to have this wonderful experience in a part of the world that is a mystery to most Americans. What we've discovered is that Mongolia is filled with wonderful, kind people. Both the ones who live here and the ones who choose to work their hearts out, serving the Lord in fairly challenging conditions for 18-24 months.  

Speaking of running water - in the past 
we mentioned how rust-colored our 
water can be. To be fair, sometimes it's 
wonderfully clear.

And we're so blessed to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We try not to take that for granted. It's a real reminder of our blessings when we hear people talk about how amazing it is to feel and recognize the truths of the Gospel and the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for them as they discover these feelings for the first time. Or people who long to be able to go to the temple. Many Mongolians want to go to America because they see it as a land of opportunity, but it's truly humbling to see the yearning in our new Elder's eyes when he talks about wanting to go to America because he wants to go there to attend General Conference and see a prophet of God in person.