Mongolia Mission Week 34 - In the summer we get a break unless we break the break

 Mongolia Mission Week 34

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 worried that, with the end of the school year, we would find ourselves with too much extra time this summer.  We wondered how we would earn our keep with only our evening church classes and the online class for Mongolian missionaries. 

So we came up new ideas. We thought we could meet with local English teachers to help them improve their oral skills. Some of our English words are so tricky to pronounce! We met with the province education department and a representative from Deseret International Charities (our sponsoring organization) to discuss this. But because the teachers are off for the summer, the education department proposed that we teach that class in the fall. They asked us if we would teach two English classes at the American Corner (sponsored by the US embassy), one for 6-9 graders and one for 10-12 graders. Each would meet 3 times a week for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. People are so eager for their kids to learn English! The young teachers got the younger class and we took the older class. 

Our other idea was to develop an IELTS class for people who want to take the international test to certify their English abilities. This class, targeted for adults or high school seniors, now happens for 1 1/2 hours three times a week after our evening classes at the church. So we added 6 classes to our summer, each 1 1/2 to 2 hours long. Guess we'll earn our keep. And we broke our summer break!

However, the young missionaries and English teachers got permission to visit the local Khamariin Khiid monastery and energy center on preparation day, and we drove them. It's about a 30 minutes drive out of the city into the desert. It's a great area to visit and the main tourist highlight of the area. On the way, this fellow was along the road guarding his harem. 

We are not sure about the green sash he was sporting. Most goats have their ownership documented with a bit of spray paint on the back of one horn or with notches in the ears (They are cashmere goats, so it would be a shame to brand them). But maybe his documentation is a green sash. Lovely horns. But his hair was filled with cockle burrs! Good thing we didn't want to pet him anyway; he didn't look like he was really wanting affection from us.

At the intersection along the road is a scorpion statue. It's very impressive even if we don't fully understand the significance. In Buddhism, a scorpion represents the transformation of negative elements into enlightened wisdom.

Past the monastery is a canyon with many caves and rock structures. This area is fascinating. During the period where Mongolia was a satellite state of the USSR, they adopted the socialist attitude about the evils of religion. Many of the monasteries were destroyed and the monks put to death. Some monks hid out in these caves. These caves still have active visits by Buddhists who come to pay tribute, respect, honor, or pray. The caves have incense, bird seed, candy, money, scriptures, etc. in them. It's a beautiful, remote area filled with small rock piles placed there as wishes by families hoping for something important in their lives, like the ability to bear children. 

We found crazy thick spider webs.

A second area is the Outer Shambhala or Energy Center. This is an area purported to give one energy by laying on the rocks. 

John said it didn't do much for his energy. 

There are many structures here and places to make offerings and prayers. It's very quiet, except for the wind, and an impressive place to visit.

The white structures honor the dead of individual families.

Unfortunately, by the time we finished playing around in the rocks and trying to absorb energy, the actual monastery was closed, but we enjoyed wandering around that area, too.

We found a herd of camels on the way home. They sure look naked and skinny (especially their humps!) in the summer without all of their winter shag.

One fun blessing of the week was to have Alex Schefer and his father visit us and some of the people he knew in Sainshand. Alex served here about a year and a half ago and was one of the first English teachers in our town. He left Mongolia before we came, but we met him briefly at the training center in Provo, Utah, where he works as a translator who helps teach Mongolian. When he visited the church building, he was so impressed. When he first came here, the group met in a member's apartment, then they moved to our building (the second floor), but it's been remodeled since he left and is very different now. 

Dinner with Alex, his dad, and some of Chukka's family.

The sisters came up with the idea to celebrate our Independence Day.

July 4th pancake breakfast with Schefers and those
of us serving in Sainshand 

Since there's never a dull moment in our summer (we actually never expected that!), our new young women's class president came up with a service project for the youth to visit a senior center here. We made a visit on Thursday to arrange things, then on July 4th after the pancake breakfast, our apartment turned into a cookie factory to make treats.

Running the beaters for the cookies was an exciting new
experience! Mongolians don't really bake much; some
apartments don't have ovens. Gers certainly don't.

Later that day, while we were teaching a class, the rest of the teachers, missionaries, and youth went to the senior center to deliver hand made decorations and cookies. They played games with the residents and got invited back to make a monthly visit. 

Our new Young Women's class president also taught an excellent Sunday School lesson for the youth, with some mentoring from Kathy. We're standing back in amazement at this young girl stepping forward into this role and elevating herself to fit the call. The Lord's program for the youth of His church is designed to develop leaders, and it works. Not only that, it spreads a lot of good in this world in ways that only youth can spread it. They benefit from looking outwards towards serving other people, and other people benefit from their enthusiasm, optimism, and testimony. Now, do we have a perfectly planned lesson and activity every week? Of course not! We experience growing pains just like any other youth-led group in the church. But the Lord supports us and them and ensures the growth of His children in ways we never could have predicted.

And while we may be living far away, we still are grateful for the blessings of being Americans and enjoying a land of liberty and so many blessings that we often take for granted. We taught about Independence Day three times in our classes on the 4th of July. We may not have had a break for the holiday, but we found a way to explain its importance to our students. And while we were teaching it, we found a renewed sense of amazement about how a ragtag bunch of patriots (with God's help) were able to break away from one of the most powerful nations in the world. God had a plan for America, and when Joseph Smith was born, it was into a country where true freedom of religion was possible. 

Stay tuned next time for the beginning of Naadam, Mongolia's Independence Day.

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.