Mongolia Mission Week 19 - Pi Day, Rubik's tournament, and Transfers

 Mongolia Mission Week 19

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 sat down to write our blog and thought, "This was a pretty quiet week. What is there to share?" Then we looked back through our pictures and realized there are so many random things that would be fun to share. First, Pi Day, always important for the math nerds in our family. 

Chicken pot pie!

Chicken pot pie is always a winner. Then we thought we'd try a banana pie. Hear us out on this. First, we don't really have a pie pan. The one we used for the pot pie is a very large lid from a casserole dish. So we made our banana pie in a 7" x 9" pan. That works out to the same area as a 9" pie pan (using pi to calculate this, of course). And we can't find vanilla pudding or banana pudding, but we did find a light colored pudding imported from Turkey (most grocery items in this country are imported from somewhere else - our jar of pickled beets said "We love vegetables!" on its lid in Polish). Our pudding turned out to be honey almond flavor. And the whipping cream doesn't really whip into peaks, but it is delicious. The result was a success and probably impossible to ever recreate. 

We ate the pies when the sisters came over to watch the Relief Society broadcast with Kathy. It was for the commemoration of the beginning of the Relief Society, 183 years ago, broadcast from the red brick store in Nauvoo clear to Mongolia! They shared a sweet experience in watching and talking about the broadcast and feeling a part of what is considered by many to be the oldest, largest women's organization in the world. We'll watch it again in Mongolian if the broadcast gets translated. Then we can include the one adult sister in our group and maybe some of the teenage girls as well.

Walking home from school one day there was some sort of military event going on.  Not sure what, but we watched the formation and listened to a soloist sing a beautiful number in a wonderfully deep voice. It may have been a rehearsal of some sort, because there was no audience and because kids were running around on the parade ground while it was happening. The mysteries keep piling up.

One day when we were with Sister Taylor and Sister Tierney, we went walking along the top of the hill overlooking our little city of Sainshand right at sunset. Our apartment complex is on the hill, but we've never done a lot of exploring because of the cold.

There's a memorial of a war hero up there,
as well as a tank.  

So is a monastery - you can see the silky scarves
people have hung from a line between two poles.

There's a row of gers at the foot of the hill.

There's a fun footbridge that crosses
above the highway

The students we teach at the school were part of a Rubik's Cube tournament this week. There were both individual competitions and class competitions (where the clock keeps ticking until all members of the class finish). It was painful watching the last person of a class trying to finish, with the pressure of the entire class upon their shoulders. Sometimes the time just ran out. The school had decided that holding a competition like this would motivate students to spend less time on their phones. We'd been wondering why so many students have been obsessed with the cubes in class - while we are trying to teach-

The competition was held in the elementary school gym.

These are some of our 8th grade students.
Students here wear school uniforms.

These are some of the cute students that attend
English class at the church. Some are taking church
lessons, too. They  love learning about the Savior.
 

They learned that one teacher was being
transferred and would leave Sainshand
the next day. Serious sadness.

On Thursday, all of our young teachers headed to the city. Ally Taylor and Bryant Higginbotham both got new assignments after spending over 12 weeks in Sainshand. They all left Thursday night, spent the night on the train, went to meetings Friday, then the ones coming back got on a train for another overnight train ride. Good thing they are young! We wouldn't survive with that kind of a schedule.

Headed to the city for transfers - we miss
them already!

Dylan McWhorter and Rylee Tierney got to stay in Sainshand. When they got back, we got to meet Roman Eves and a sweet native Mongolian missionary, Sister Tumenjargal. And that afternoon they all got right to work. For Mutual, we picked up garbage around an outdoor basketball court near our church. We had a small but mighty crew, including a girl we picked up along the way. We had actually seen her when we walked to the church that day. 

Many times when we walk past kids, we hear them yell "Hello!" Most don't know how to answer us when we try to have conversations or even when we ask "How are you?" But, assuming we are English-speakers (a fair assumption), they like to call out the English word they do know and have us respond. And it makes us feel like celebrities. One the other day yelled, "Hello, Grandma!" and "Hello, Grandpa!" Anyway, this one girl greeted us on our way to church, and when she saw us later with our little band, she stayed to help.

A small but very hard-working crew

John's partner

Afterwards, the elders joined a game.

Sunday was another amazing day. All of our cleaning crew from the prior day came to church and stayed for the entire two hours. We had other investigators, too. Again, translations worked and important messages were received through the Spirit. The adult Sunday School lesson was on personal revelation. After discussing it for awhile, Kathy asked our investigator who is getting baptized on April 5 about his experiences with personal revelation. He said he'd never had any. Then she asked him how he knew he needed to be baptized, and he launched into a story about his first discussion with the elders and how warm and happy it made him feel. He can't wait until he is baptized. He is so excited about everything he is learning. His life has changed enough that people have noticed a big difference in him. Kathy then had a chance to clarify that those feelings are, indeed, personal revelation. 

We are humbled to feel the Lord's guidance. He continues, in His divine way and within His divine timeline, to bless this area, the people here, and the small group of us who are working to serve them.

Mongolia Mission Week 18 - Spring? in Sainshand

 Mongolia Mission Week 18

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). 

The Tsagaan Sar holiday, which seems (among other things), to be a celebration of spring, ushered in some warmer weather. We've had several days in the 50's, which feels incredible. Kathy has bid her long coat farewell. Kids are starting to wear tennis shoes to school instead of fur-lined boots. We hear that spring also ushers in sand storms, but we've only had one day of that experience, so far. Blowing sand and tumbleweed races!

The  warmer weather has caused small

children to appear on the playground

outside our apartment.

This downtown concrete framework has been

untouched all winter and now activity has resumed.

Building safety standards are not like the US ones.  

This is an enclosed balcony off our apartment. The
insides of the windows have been coated with thick ice
crystals all winter. We got to see what's really out there.

Turns out the answer was a dust storm. Maybe washing
windows is like washing your car, only instead of it
bringing rain, it brings dust. This was the next day!

Tumbleweeds piled up along our school fence.

Next topic, food again! Of course!

After Tsagaan Sar, we ended up with 15
very sturdy loaves of sweet, fried bread.
They last forever. People enjoy munching
on them or dip them in hot drinks.

We decided we could make them into bread pudding.
One loaf makes a 7x9 inch pan of bread pudding!

Tsagaan Sar may be officially over, but making and eating buuz (the traditional dumplings) is not. 

Chuka and Baagii invited some of us 
over for buuz. Their family is so warm
and welcoming and is the anchor
of our church group.

Alice invited all of us Americans who teach English at the 3rd School to join her and her daughter, Michelle, in making buuz. It was fun and delicious. Schools in town are numbered. The 3rd school is the third one that was built in Sainshand; it was built in 1957.

 

After buuz-making, Michelle, who is 5,
read us some stories in English.
Her English is awesome!

We ended the week with a Mutual activity where the youth worked on making "Look unto Christ" bracelets using the pattern provided in the church instructions for this year's youth theme. Turns out they take longer to make than we anticipated, but we had a great turnout and everyone seemed to enjoy the activity. A lot of attendees were from the English classes we all teach at the church.

Most of the kids just got creative and
made bracelets, necklaces, or phone
dangles out of beads.

Every Sunday turns out to be unexpected and amazing. Imagine preparing a Sunday School lesson knowing that you could be teaching only missionaries, only the one main family in our group and a bunch of little boys, or all of the above, maybe with an investigator or two. It's a daunting prospect, one that needs language interpretation and lots of inspiration. But this is the Lord's work, and He directs the lessons to suit the needs of whoever is there in beautiful and inspiring ways. 

On the 16th, there were very few of our local members in attendance - just 3 teens. But several people showed up who are interested in learning more about the gospel. In fact, 11 non-members attended. That's the most we've seen since we've been in Sainshand.

We had great discussions together, and the non-members actually took part in teaching each other. Two of the non-members, a boy and a girl, were teens whose English is phenomenal, and they helped translate! Asked to help translate John's sacrament meeting talk, the girl found herself trying to explain terminology she had never heard before, like "Restoration" and priesthood." She was assisted from the audience by the elders and sisters and also the other teen investigator. Afterwards, she said she really didn't want to do that again, but then she became so involved in the Sunday School discussion that she found herself translating it as well! When an investigator lady would ask a question, Kathy, the teacher, would answer it, but both the question and the answer needed translation that she, the other teen, and the sisters provided. It worked! The 3 people stayed after church for an hour to talk and ask more questions. And the Spirit was so strong. 

Then the investigator lady invited us to come over and eat and play games with her family. It was a delightful evening getting to know her family!

Every family plays Shagai, the ankle bone game.

The daughter, whose dance competition
medals are on the living room wall,
showed us a traditional dance.

In other news of this week, our sweet puppy who currently lives with Steven and his family in Nebraska, turned 5 years old. We miss her. And our family. But we appreciate their love and support. We have been blessed by prayers from home, and we thank you all!

And, even in Mongolia, we got to see the "blood moon."

We close this week with a quote from Alma 30:44: " ..... and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."  

We see that witness of God in the animals, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the tumbleweeds. We see God's hand in the people of Mongolia. In how our Sunday meetings go. And in the help we receive as we teach lessons, meet people, and work with such amazing young people who are also here to serve the people of Mongolia. God's love for His children is amazing! We are so blessed to get to experience it and be witnesses of it.

Mongolia Mission Week 17 - Zone Conference

 Mongolia Mission Week 17

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). 

It was a quieter week after the holiday. Wait - it was still the holiday until Wednesday. We left Monday night on the 11:45 pm train to Ulaanbaatar for Zone Conference, arriving Tuesday morning about 10 am to 2" of fresh snow.

Ice on the streets gets broken up by hand and scooped 
away; otherwise, it will stay for months.

We rode at the end of a very long train.

We taxied to the mission home through remarkably (!) uncrowded streets. But the door was locked and the lights were off. No security guard was on duty because it was still the holiday; everyone had a day off or was at Zone Conference. There are 4 mission zones in Mongolia with a conference each day for four days during zone conferences. 

Saying to ourselves, "Um, now what?" we headed across the street to get warm in a place that supposedly serves good hot chocolate. It was closed. Still towing our luggage, we headed down the snowy cobblestone sidewalks to Emart, a department store/grocery store. 

We got our hot chocolate (with hazelnut)
from a robot-like vending machine.
It was not that great. 

But Khongoroo, who takes care of finances and travel reservations for the mission, came to our rescue on her day off. She headed to the zone conference across town, got us a key, and returned to get us into the building. We were saved.

Wednesday was our East Zone conference. We were told we could dress in our traditional Mongolian clothing. Many people enjoy wearing it. The conference started with a ritualistic Tsagaan Sar greeting. We were lined up, seated by age. Younger people greeted the oldest by supporting their arms with extended arms, exchanging greetings that look like a kiss on the cheek, and then moving on and taking a seat to be greeted next. Quite the ceremony!

Mission president Namgur, his wife, and all the senior
missionaries in our zone.

We had a spiritual feast of a zone conference. It was so great to see all the missionaries and English teachers! We were taught and inspired powerfully by our young leaders. They helped us take personal revelation from the scripture in D&C 100:3-6, which says "an effectual door shall be opened in the regions round about in this eastern land...speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hears...it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say." We were taught by our mission president and his wife, Mayumi Yamanaka Namgur. She, also the mission nurse, talked about being a light to others and also about therapy lights. We have each been issued a low lumen light to work by for a while every day because there has been so little natural sunlight, which can affect a person's well-being.

We conducted apartment cleaning checks for the zone
this time and presented awards.

As usual, when we were in the city we spent some time exploring. 

The life-sized ice sculptures we found last time we visited
the city were still mostly in tact, and it was warm
enough (!) that kids were even sliding on the ice slide. 

Buddhist icon in an international restaurant
next to an ancient Buddhist temple museum

Fresh roses on the table. They must have
known we were coming!

We visited the Chingges Khan museum.
He had a huge influence on this country - 
as well as on the world.

In the museum we found remnants of
centuries-old traditional clothing designed
much like that which we see in the streets 

We saw many remnants of ancient carriage parts.

All that's left of this saddle and harnessing is the frame 
and the gold.

These boots were fortified like armor. Not sure the
enemies had decent protection against the spikes
the Khan's armies left, like those in the top left corner.

And very comprehensive displays of many things.
These are all bronze mirrors with many different 
designs on their backs. 

Back on the train to Sainshand, we left at 4:40 pm and arrived at 1:45 am. Got to bed about 3 am. We are starting to think we are too old for these hours. 

Sunset from the train 

We appreciate your interest in our blog and our activities in Mongolia. One would think every week would be the same - teach at the secondary school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, teach at the medical school on Thursdays and Fridays, teach English classes at our church on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. Then have Mutual for our church youth on Saturdays and help organize and teach Sunday meetings. But every week brings a new adventure, new experiences, and new blessings. We feel the guidance of the Lord in all our responsibilities. He cares about the progress of His children both temporally (food, shelter, clothing and education) and spiritually. We are blessed to be helping in all areas every day with our English classes and our church responsibilities. We love Him and feel of His love for His children!

Mongolian Mission Week 16 - Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian Lunar New Year

Mongolia Mission Week 16

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). 

Tsagaan Sar, the biggest holiday of the year in Mongolia, seems to be a combination of Thanksgiving (lots of food), Memorial Day (celebration of families and memories), Halloween (kids going door to door for treats and money), Easter (many people get new clothes to wear),  and Christmas (many gifts are given). It officially lasts for 3 days (March 1-3 this year), but the government extended it, so most businesses and schools were closed for 5 days. Tsagaan Sar is the celebration of the lunar new year but is actually the Festival of the White Moon. The dates don't correspond to Chinese New Year. It is an amazing holiday full of traditions that have been passed down for centuries!

A type of traditional Mongolian clothing is a deel, which is long and robe-like. Men, women, and children wear deels for big holidays, and we've been told we ought to wear them, too. In Sainshand, we see them worn throughout the year, mostly by the older folks we see on the streets. 

We didn't know where to find them in our little town (we didn't know there was going to be a big bazaar before the holiday), but we had found a person visiting our church who happens to be a tailor as well as a school teacher. He told us he could make us deels in time for the  holiday and measured us on the spot at the church. Then a wonderful member of our church (the only one who speaks English - because he went on a mission to Omaha!) took us to a silk shop and helped us navigate our way through selecting fabrics.

Chukka was on the phone with the tailor to see exactly
how much of each type of fabric we needed.

The shop lady was very helpful with 
suggesting what to choose for trims.

We were pleased to see how our deels turned out; our tailor finished them at 9:00 the night before the holiday! And we were glad to have them. People seemed to honestly appreciate our efforts to celebrate their holiday with them.

The next thing we had to do was to build our little bread shrine for our home. We bought the base for our ul boov, or shoe sole cake, from a woodcraft booth at the bazaar. After we bought the base, we were headed home and stopped at a market. One of the sellers saw it in our bag and lit right up. She told us (and sold us) what we needed: deep fried breads shaped like shoe soles, deep fried bread balls that would partially fill the structure, aaruul curds, and sugar cubes. The layers must be an odd number of layers between 3 and 9 (alternating layers of happiness and pain for the new year, ending with happiness). Nine layers is for government officials, three is for young people, five for middle-aged, and seven for older. John was convinced that at his age, ours should be seven layers. Maybe because we are new here, most advice was for us to have three layers, and that became the plan.

People leave their ul boovs out for the entire
holiday, and since the bread is kind of hard 
to begin with, it's still edible afterwards. Tastes
kind of like a Utah scone.

The elders and sisters enjoy wearing deels, too, even when we clean the church.

Sister Taylor contemplates the joys of service.

Elder Mac looks ready for something-

Then the invitations started. Javkhlantugs, a student in one of our evening classes, is studying to be a train mechanic. He lives in town with his parents, his sister, her husband, and their little boy. They invited us over to their house to learn how to make buuz in their living room, and we happily accepted this evening of friendship.  

 Javkhlantugs' mom shows Mac how
the partially frozen meat should be chopped.

Javkhlantugs' dad is the expert at forming the buuz.

Of course, we had to go on a quest to find meat for our own buuz-making. We’ve enjoyed the goat or mutton ones we’ve tried, and we wanted to be "authentic," so we went looking for goat meat. However, the only meats we have regularly found in the stores are chicken, sometimes pork, and various interesting tubes of processed meat. John’s sleuthing skills worked in our favor, and we found a couple of butchers. But not much goat. So we courageously bought some camel. We liked how lean it looked. 

The challenge is that Mongolians do not make buuz
out of lean meat. They make juicy little dumplings,
and that isn’t as easy with lean meat.

We invited the young English teachers over and had a grand time making and eating dumplings. 

Our buuz do not look as consistent as the ones made
by people who have been doing this since
 they were kids, but they tasted pretty decent.

As we talked, we discovered that Mac went to school with our grandson, Parker. What a small world!

We have some pictures of our kids and grandkids
hanging in our house. That helped us make the connection.

Our friend Molly, who a couple of weeks ago had invited us to her house to make buuz with her family to freeze for the holiday, has a daughter and a son who attend our English classes. They invited us to their house again on the night before Tsagan Tsar for what the daughter described as a Thanksgiving Eve. She said you’re supposed to eat so much you are extremely full, then your new year will be full of good things.  We had fun eating salads and buuz and playing another version of the ankle bones game. This game is so ancient we’ve found the ankle bones in museums from the earliest eras in the country.

We also went to the house of one of our young women that afternoon who, with her friend, made and served us the traditional salads on the afternoon before the holiday as well. We were impressed that they would take on that role and honor us with an invitation.

On the first day of the holiday, which was Saturday this year, many people make a trek up a mountain to see the sunrise as it beckons in a new year. They have cleaned their homes to be spotless. Then they begin visiting close family, with families visiting the eldest relatives first, greeting everyone with a specific and affectionate greeting. People meet new members of the family, like new babies or in-laws. They listen to family stories. Young girls often serve their elders by helping with the dishes, etc., all day as people visit. Relatives give each other gifts.

But also on the first day, children begin what we describe as trick-or-treating, going from door to door with bags to accept candy and money. Luckily our students had prepared us for this custom, but what we were not prepared for was how many came, and for how many hours of the day for a couple of days. It was great fun, though, and many were dressed up in amazing traditional clothes. Some were very shocked to see a foreign couple open the door. Others adapted really fast and told us “thank you” in English, assuming that’s what we spoke.

Two meals between 4:00 and 7:00 on the eve of the holiday had set the stage for what would happen for the next several days. Everyone likes to feed their friends and family for this holiday. A lot of food. 

Each meal follows a traditional pattern. When you enter a home, various foods are laid out on the table. A hot bowl of milk is placed in your hands. It usually contains a little salt and some oil. There are mayonnaise-heavy salads like egg salad, beet salad, and capital salad, which is the most common one and is like an American potato salad made with small squares of potato and ham. There are other salads and fruits, some sweets, and usually a platter or two of sliced processed meat alternated with cucumbers or pickles. Traditionally there is also an entire back of a mutton sitting on a platter (remember the whole sheep we saw at the bazaar last week?).

After you visit for 15 or 20 minutes or so, which is the amount of time it takes to steam pre-frozen buuz (and pretty much fill your stomach with the other food!), the buzz are brought out. Some young English teachers get themselves into gastronomical trouble with how much food they eat as they go from house to house. Some of our students tell us they eat 100 buuz or so over the holiday. Various drinks complete the meal. Because we don't drink alcohol, we didn't drink the vodka or the fermented mare's milk, Airag, which is the traditional drink that has been passed down for centuries. Our hosts were gracious and understanding.

We celebrated with our friends Alice and Michelle.

We celebrated with Aamga and Zaya and their family
- you can see the mutton back below the ul boov.

We celebrated with another English teacher.

We celebrated with Chukka, his wife Baagi,
and their son Olzii.

It was so fun to see festive people everywhere in town and to join in the festivities. 

We were told that during the main three days of the holiday, people are not supposed to argue, or that will mean that they will argue throughout the rest of the year. There was certainly a happy atmosphere in town and a different feel to the air. Some taxi drivers even refused our payment. 

With our friends, we will continue celebrating our commitments to be better people, to honor our heritage, and to share what we have. We can give the gifts of peace and joy to others and receive peace and joy from people who help and support us. We know that we have great cause to celebrate and feel joy in our lives because we have a Savior who has promised us peace when we follow Him and try to live as He lived. He has promised us peace through His holy Spirit to accompany us through the challenges in this life. We have felt these promises fulfilled. They are real because He is real.