Mongolia Mission Week 46 - Change happens

Mongolia Mission Week 46

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our !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). 

As you know, last week was unusually amazing, but we always find amazing things here in Mongolia. This week was more "normal," but we have come to understand that unpredictable is normal. And so are changes. We'll start from the end this time.

Our week ended with news that our prophet and president, Russell M. Nelson, had passed away. He was 101 years old and had been very active right up until the end. He dedicated a temple in June. He wrote an op-ed for Time for his 101st birthday. He was an amazing man, leader, and prophet of God. We are grateful that he was blessed with such good health to serve with vigor for so long! We appreciate the guidance he offered through his prophetic insights. His guidance helped us remain spiritually strong and hopeful during Covid. His guidance brought greater clarity to our purpose on earth at this time and further understanding of what it means to be a covenant people. His guidance helped us know what it means to minister and how important it is to receive personal revelation. These are just a few of his lessons we treasure.  

We felt we had our own little miracle here in Sainshand.  The hymn we had planned so sing to open our Sunday church services wasn't available as a programed song on our electronic piano. We decided to sing "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet." It turns out we were singing this great tribute to having a prophet on the earth today at about the same time President Nelson passed away. We were shocked to learn a couple of hours later of his passing, but we felt it a tender mercy to have been thanking God for President Nelson's life at that time. We will miss him and his love and leadership.

We also know that our Heavenly Father has a plan and that our next church president will be who is needed for this period of time on earth. Each of our church presidents has been selected by God before this life and prepared for just their time of service. We are blessed and grateful to know we are in His hands and will always have a leader on the watchtower to provide the guidance and leadership we need. 

And the weather is changing also. In the Gobi, it hasn't gotten cold yet, not like it has in the capital and further north, but it's feeling like fall. Most days are in the 70s (F) with nights usually in the 50s. Most of the trees around Sainshand are losing their green and turning kind of dead-looking. Women have mostly stopped wearing skirts on the streets - they're keeping their legs covered. 

Last week just outside the capital we got
to see some amazing colors, though.

The desert near here is no longer green but has  quite a variety of colors and hues. We still enjoy looking at it!

This picture doesn't do the nuance in the colors justice.

Some of you have been wondering what a normal week looks like. Well, no two weeks are ever the same! But this week we taught our 3 Monday classes and 3 Thursday classes at the secondary school, one of our 2 classes at the medical school, 3 nighttime conversation classes at the church, and our online discussion with Mongolian missionaries working to learn English.

We also assisted with a Family Home Evening that we have on every other Thursday night and with young men and young women activities and church cleaning on Saturday. John planned our Sunday worship services. We helped our elders and sisters as much as we could when they needed another adult involved in a lesson or activity. 

Family Home Evening games

The YM carved soap for an activity. Afterwards, the
whole room smelled like lemon-scented soap!

But on any given week we have to be ready to pivot for all of the above at a moment's notice. Our online missionary classes depend on what other meetings the missionaries need to attend. Sunday School depends on how many people attend, what ages they are, and how much they know about God. English lessons at the church in the evenings depend on who walks in the door that night and how late they are. We've been able to do a lot of improvising because with the Lord's help, we can do anything! These are His children, and He is not going to let them down, in spite of our weaknesses and failings.

Our school students really got into a Pictionary type activity.

As an example, we'll give you a peek into what happened on Thursday (which is our busiest day of the week and held some interesting moments for us). As you will see, even our school assignments require a lot of flexibility even though the students are the same every week. 

• At 10:00 we had our call to help Mongolian missionaries improve their English. Only a few attended, but we had a great discussion with the ones who came. We talked about their English and their plans for the future.
• At 11:30 the electricity went out for a planned (we found out the night before) outage that lasted until about 4:00 pm.
• We went to the school. Here's what happened:
• Class #1 - the teacher didn't show up today. It was just us, no electricity, and some fairly rowdy 11th graders.
• Class #2 - the teacher met us at the door and said we would teach in a different room today (It's not unusual this year to switch rooms). We all walked to another room together, including the students, but that door was locked. After an unsuccessful attempt to get a key, we all went back to the first classroom and held that class with some fairly rowdy 8th graders (the teacher said the rowdiness can't be helped at that age).
• 30 minute break. We were invited to join the teachers in a photo of all those going on strike next week for higher wages (They want to make more than $500/month). We declined being in the picture. Too political for our involvement. And we are volunteers - we don't get paid with money anyway, so striking has no benefit.
• Class #3 - this teacher was there but is the leader of the strike, so she had to go downtown for a meeting. We held the class without her. These 9th graders were pretty good. But at the end of our class, we got ready to leave and the students informed us it was a 2 hour class. What? We only taught it for 1 hour last week. And we had other commitments, so we told them goodbye and just left. We guess when the teacher is there she continues on after we leave. Not sure what happened after we left that day...
• We went to the medical school for our first English class of the year with 12 medical students. It was our introduction class, but we were still without power, so no PowerPoint with pictures of our family. They are great students and it was fun.
• We went to dinner at a Korean restaurant in the area. There is a fair amount of Korean food here because a lot of Mongolians get jobs in Korea, at least for a few years. Some come back and start restaurants. But fully half the things on the menu were not available. Hmmm, was this because the power had been out? Hard to tell.
• We attended Family Home Evening at the church. 24 (mostly kids) of us together for a spiritual message, fun games, and dessert. And we had electricity!

Whew! It was a long day. But good. We like our little city, rowdy students and all. It has a great, friendly vibe. And we've been here long enough we've begun running into people we know. We walked into the market in our apartment complex the other night and heard "Hello" from a man on a ladder fixing the security camera system. He is the dad of one of our English students from our classes at church.

But of course we need to share some tidbits from our trip last week to Ulaanbaatar. We found a place called Molly Malone's Irish Pub, which had little of what we would consider pub food but a lot of pub ambience.

The light fixture has layers of fringe
reminiscent of Chinggis Khan's 
horsehair banners.

  

Surprisingly, it did have a pretty good steak.
And a really cute patron!

We also found a French bakery - we don't find French
food in Sainshand! 

Actually, we ran into people we know in Ulaanbaatar, too. We had a District (our Sainshand group) lunch at Subway. Getting some American food can be a special treat!

We also had a chance to visit BB Butcher. It's the most American-like butcher shop in the country, we think. They have a nice variety of beef and pork and a lot of imported foods (like American cereal!). They also speak pretty good English.

Eclectic offerings at BB Butcher

And we couldn't pass up this seemingly random statue of goats on a street corner. We don't know the significance of the statue, but goats seem to be replacing pigs as John's favorite animal. Oh, but the eyes on those camels are pretty appealing!!

We hope you are all enjoying the change of seasons and weather, wherever you are. Every season of the year can remind us of God and His hand in our lives. Every season of life also brings changes and can be a motivation to reflect on our path and what we can learn from each stage. We can grow and be refined as we prepare for our life after our life on earth. 

Oh, and we're looking forward to seeing General Conference. We all have the chance to hear from God's anointed prophets and apostles. They provide great guidance to assist us in navigating our path through life. We in Mongolia will watch on October 11 and 12, a week later than the actual broadcast, when it's been translated into Mongolian.

Mongolia Mission Week 45 - Can It Get Any More Amazing?

 Mongolia Mission Week 45

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). 

What an amazing week - we know we always say that, but this one really was!

On Monday we were innocently sitting at home on a video call with our family (About every two weeks we enjoy a video call with all of our children and grandchildren who are available. We so love and appreciate these calls and the chance to catch up with them!). Anyway, we were about to finish when we got a local call saying, "Are you coming?" 

Of course! What can we say? Sometimes there are breakdowns in communication, but we all do our best. We hurried to an event where Deseret International Charities (DIC, the charity for whom we volunteer as English teachers) was distributing 238 Chromebook computers to 17 local schools in remote soums (villages) in our area. It's another phase of a larger project where a total of 3000 laptops will be or have been distributed throughout the country. We also got to tour the area in a local school where DIC provided funding for a counseling room.

Of course cute Mongolian dancers were part of the event!

With an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mongolia, we drove to Ulaanbaatar for meetings later in the week. We had time to go with Rottweilers to the House of Mercy, a food shelter sponsored by the Catholic church, to provide some help with lunch. It was a tender experience. We met volunteers from Australia who happened to be there that day, too. 

That night we attended a packed devotional in a stake center. The devotional was open to everyone in the country but was preceded by Elder Andersen meeting with local government and civic leaders. In both meetings he shared information about the proposed temple and site and showed renderings of what the temple interior will look like. The design will include features inspired by local architecture (like gers) and meaningful Mongolian symbols. It will incorporate local visual traditions in a house of worship where worthy members will participate in sacred ordinances that can only be performed in temples.

Elder Andersen commended the audience members who are the converts Elder Maxwell talked about in his 1993 dedicatory prayer for Mongolia, people who are the foundation of the Gospel in this country. "Let us be determined to prepare ourselves and share with others, that when it [the temple] is dedicated we will be ready to receive it," said Elder Andersen.

And then he moved on to the real reason for the temple - preparing people for the Second Coming of Christ. "It will be breathtaking," is how Elder Andersen described that day. He referred us to his remarks in April of 2015 ("Thy Kingdom Come"), where he weaves together scriptures that prophesy about Christ's return. To hear Elder Andersen say he has "a sure and certain witness of Jesus Christ" was a thrilling experience.

People are so excited that they will have a House
of the Lord in this country where they can be sealed
together as families for eternity!

Elder Andersen asked choir members (and Sister Kunz) to hold up renderings of the temple interior.

On Friday, we attended a meeting including all the Mongolian missionaries and DIC volunteers. It's the only time all the mission zones gather together in person at the same time - when an apostle visits. We heard from President and Sister Kunz, Elder and Sister Esplin (the Asia North Area president and wife), and Elder and Sister Andersen. Such powerful, wonderful, and spiritual messages about Christ and about miracles that have already been a part of the process of having a temple in Mongolia. We feel so blessed to have been able to participate and receive these messages. 

Our entire mission posing for a picture while waiting for the apostle. We sang
"We Thank Thee, Oh God, for a Prophet" as he and his wife entered the room.

On Friday we also had to hurry back to Sainshand for more excitement. Our choice friend, Temuulen, was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday. He is a wonderful young man who has been taking lessons, considering, and praying about this decision. He knows that God has a plan for him and will help and bless him throughout his life!

Temmulen with his dad and sister who attended his baptism

But the week wasn't over yet. Because there was another festival going on. The Dornogobi province was putting on the first ever Heavenly Noble Festival (or maybe Knives in the Sky, depending on which translation you use for the title), out near the famous Khamariin Khiid monastery and energy center in the middle of the Gobi. This was a two day festival celebrating the life and works of Danzanravjaa, the famous monk, teacher, composer, and poet who founded Khamariin Khiid. We made it out for a few hours on Saturday afternoon.

We actually walked on the kind of sand you picture when you think of desert, instead of the coarse, gritty sand people constantly sweep off the streets and sidewalks of our town. We visited the gers of 17 soums (villages) where each group showed off cool antiques and cultural practices. We saw herbs and mushrooms people use for health, how to make ropes out of camel hair or leather strips, the processes of making curd and airag (the traditional Mongolian drink made from fermented mares' milk), etc. People were so happy to share their culture. We met many friends, some new and some old.

This man showed a collection of antique arrowheads.
Each tribe had their own design. Some whistled.

Sister Fish watched Sister Gainer practice
traditional Mongolian script, a beautiful art.

Elder Johnson took a turn with a
horsehead fiddle.

We saw some very enthusiastic performers.
This one used a string of bones for percussion .

The festival was so spread out we couldn't get it all
in one picture.

A lighted gate in the desert

To the delight of these young people, we came upon 
a small herd of camels on the way to the festival. 

We can't believe the amazing blessings this week held! And there's more to come!

Mongolia Mission Week 44 - Back to School - How Does That Translate?

Mongolia Mission Week 44

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our !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). 

This week was our official "back to school" day. We didn't take a front door picture with a sign to post on Facebook, but John did capture Kathy at the chalkboard after we asked our 11th grade class to write adjectives that can answer the question "How are you?" They came up with some good ones, but our 7th grade class actually beat them with answers like "under the weather"! We always have a few people in each class with a pretty good grasp of the English language, but this class seems to have more people on a higher level. Interestingly enough, kids who speak good English usually get their language abilities from YouTube or video games.

After this picture they filled the board with more 
descriptive words.

The streets seem more serious these days. During
the summer, only John and the elders wore white 
shirts and ties.

But not too serious! (In case you were wondering,
different tie lengths and colors of pants/skirts
reflect different grades.)

We visited the early morning seminary class at our church this week. (The teens meet at 6:30 in the morning for scripture study.) We took them breakfast and were blessed to see the sunrise. We have enjoyed wonderful sunsets while in Mongolia, but the sunrise this morning was spectacular! 

It was fun to capture the sunrise with the windmills
and solar panels.

These youth are true pioneers (one is not even baptized yet!)

Although Sainshand has a bunch of tall, new apartment buildings in the process of construction, it is full of old, communist-era buildings (our school is 68 years old!) that keep getting updated in interesting ways. In this case, we visited a photo shop to get some of our pictures printed for the church bulletin board and found a building within a building, each with a raised threshold.

Besides interesting building configurations, we get some comic relief from language translations. On a package of frozen pork with vegetables and sauce, the writing in one place translated (via Google Translate on our phones) to "Don't eat with persimmons" and "Don't eat if you're a whole person." Luckily, we haven't seen any persimmons here. We did risk buying the food in spite of the fact that we consider ourselves to be "whole persons." So far, no really strange side effects - we hope -

Then there are fun text exchanges. If we text in English to someone who only knows Mongolian, who knows what their Google or AI translation tells them? And then when they try to respond in English, who knows what their Google or AI translation tells them to respond? It's quite a guessing game on both sides! Kathy found a stylist who understands and does a good job with layered hair, so she likes to make an appointment with that person when she needs a hair cut. One day, this was their exchange when John was looking for an appointment:

We do a lot of "reading between the lines."
The salon was closed for remodeling.

Deseret International Charities, a charity organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, donates a lot of equipment to schools and hospitals in Mongolia. Recently, kitchen equipment was donated to a maternity hospital for food preparation for the patients. When the announcement was posted on Facebook, the English translation Facebook provided said the customers would receive "toilet soup" and that the equipment would help "divert traffic in the city." We're certain that's not exactly what was meant!

But we received a delightful surprise this week! The Young Women of our stake back in Utah wrote messages to missionaries when they attended girls camp this summer, and the Young Women from our ward wrote notes to us! The notes eventually made their way to Mongolia, and finally to us. So thoughtful! And in English -

Also this week, one of our students from our church English classes invited us to come watch her perform at the stadium. In Mongolia, there are not really inter-school athletic competitions, which are so much a part of teen life in the U.S. But we learned that, here in Sainshand, every class practices a dance (elementary students learn the same dance, middle schoolers learn another one, and high schoolers learn another) and competes at a school fall festival. We understand that there is a separate festival for each of the schools in town (Each school includes grades 1-12). 

These competitions are a big deal. Girls and boys of all ages dance their hearts out with great seriousness. Besides the dances, students compete in other events like tug-of-war, marching, and running competitions. This is only the 2nd week of school, and they've been working for hours every day outside of class to prepare for their festival. We saw so many of teens we know. It was great to watch and interact with so many of our young friends!

Our Sainshand group met for District Council and homemade pizza lunch. They are so much fun to be around. We love serving with these wonderful young teachers and servants!

And, since we know many of you have been waiting with anxiety to hear what interesting food we tried this week, we found a surprise. As we've mentioned, in our small city (20,000 people), most grocery items are limited to what can be easily imported. So imagine our surprise when our local market in our apartment complex had smoked duck in the freezer! From Korea. What? That's not even a staple in America. Oh, and it was delicious!!

This coming week we'll be driving to Ulaanbaatar to hear Elder Neil L. Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at a nationwide devotional on Thursday evening (Sept 18) and a mission conference on Friday. The only time all 120+ of us serving in Mongolia come together at the same time is when an apostle of Jesus Christ visits. We are excited for all this week holds!

And, just as we were completing the blog, we received the announcement of the Mongolian temple location and design. We had hoped there would be news regarding the temple this week with Elder Anderson' visit, so having the news come prior to his visit was an exciting surprise. What a blessing this place of worship will be to a people who right now travel to places like Hong Kong, the Philippines, or Utah for their temple blessings!

Artist's rendering of the Mongolian temple

So, we continue to feel very blessed. Every day is a surprise, and not just with translations. Getting invited to a festival we didn't know was happening and then seeing so many of our young friends there. Seeing an unexpectedly beautiful sunrise. Finding a smoked duck. Spending time with our fellow volunteers. Continuing to enjoy great health. Seeing the delight in someone's eyes as they feel the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every day is a delight and a blessing from God. And every day we are so thankful to be so blessed!

Mongolia Mission Week 43 - News of the week and more news!

 Mongolia Mission Week 43

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). 

You may think that all we do is run around visiting festivals, but one of our big responsibilities here (and the reason we have visas) is teaching English. This is the way the Lord wants His work to proceed in this country: we are here to do good through humanitarian efforts of different sorts.

During the summer, we taught high schoolers at the American Corner, which is sponsored by the American embassy. We continued our conversational English classes at the church and added an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) class for adults and advanced high schoolers who want to take the IELTS proficiency test. It made for long nights at the church (2.5 hours in the evening three nights a week), but we enjoyed meeting some wonderful new friends. Now the American Corner classes and the IELTS classes have ended just in time for our high school and medical school classes to begin. 

The start of school means school uniforms on the streets.

Our IELTS class - a serious group. They're
not really playing on their phones. They
are doing research for a class assignment.

We got home to a nice surprise one night. 
The sisters decorated our door!

For the final p-day (preparation day) before transfers, we invited the young volunteers over for enchiladas (we found green chilies in the capital!!!), churro cheesecake (to keep with the tex-mex theme), and games of Dalmuti and "Poetry for Neanderthals." 

This game involves bopping your opponent
if they use words of more than one syllable.

Elder Jonon sporting our goat horns
we found in the desert.

Daisy Hess was the only one of the three young volunteers to get transferred. Some of her young friends presented her with cute little gifts. 

She accepted gifts with 2 hands, Mongolian style

Sister Rose got a gift, too. A hand-made
bracelet.

A group hug for a good-bye. It's 
so hard to say goodbye!

Several of us met at the train station to see the two
sisters off to the city and give a final farewell.  

Sister Hess was replaced by Lindsey Fish, freshly arrived in Mongolia on Thursday and then in Sainshand on Saturday. Here she is, arriving after flying halfway around the world and taking the train from Ulaanbaatar - ready for a full day of activities on Saturday!

Lindsey Fish arrives - with a brand new pillow.

On Saturday, we had separate Young Men and Young Women activities. The boys had been wanting their own special activity ever since the girls went to Young Women's camp. So we hiked to the top of Wish Mountain (Officially Khan Bayanzurkh Mountain, it's where many Buddhists make special wishes.). We had 8 boys and 4 adults participate on a beautiful but very windy day.

Great views of the Gobi from Wish Mountain.

Buddhists decorate things with colorful scarfs when
they worship.

Found some wildlife, also decorated 
with a colorful scarf.

Stupas are memorials for the dead and can symbolize
the way to enlightenment.

For big celebrations, a very large fire can be built
in the big, decorative copper basket.

On the way back, we built a little fire to make s'mores
- a very new experience for the boys.

Meanwhile, the young women met at our apartment to learn how to make rice crispy treats - and see how many marshmallows they could stuff in their mouths!

Sister Fish, on the right, immediately fits right in.

The cereal also became a way to play a game
that is trending on TikTok.

We ended our Saturday with a welcome dinner for Sister Fish. There's a new restaurant in town called Gobi Nomads. It's very nice and has good food, except they were out of (or not making) pizza, salads, and milkshakes. Not uncommon. But she got to eat a couple of the main Mongolian foods, tsuivan (a noodle dish) and khuushuur (fried meat pies). 

We are so grateful to serve with these young volunteers. They are dedicated to serving God wherever they are called and however they are needed. That includes paying their own way to leave family, friends, school, and interests behind to come to a remote part of the world to teach English. They also get to serve in our local church congregation by helping with youth activities, teaching Sunday School, speaking (a lot! we don't have many members!) in meetings, translating for their poor senior people who don't seem to learn much Mongolian, and wherever else they are needed. Like cleaning the church every week. Everything with a willing smile. They are amazing examples of dedication and selfless service and we love serving with them! They add so much to our lives and this work.

And to end this week's blog - exciting news! Elder Neil L Andersen and his wife will be in Mongolia next week! He is an apostle of Jesus Christ. We will all get to go to the city for a special devotional and mission conference. Check back to learn more about his visit to Mongolia!