Mongolia Mission Week 63 - Oops! We must have been driving too fast!

 Mongolia Mission Week 63

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 are driving back to Sainshand from Ulaanbaatar. The weather is great. Still cold, but sunny with no wind. The roads are nice - with potholes, of course, but no ice or snow. And surprisingly little traffic. 

John doesn't mean to speed, but it seems difficult to hold the car at 80 kph (50 mph) for over 6 hours of driving. Anyway, we're driving along, thinking we're minding our own business, when we come upon a police officer standing along the road with a radar gun. He flags us over to stop on the shoulder. John rolls down the window and we dig for registration materials. John takes off his seatbelt to access his wallet for his driver's license. 

The officer begins talking - in Mongolian, of course. John says, "Only English." The officer turns around, shakes his head, and waves for us to go on. Doesn't even check to see if John actually has a license. Sometimes it's okay that we don't speak the language; apparently the policeman just doesn't want to go to the trouble of dealing with us.

But then the officer turns around and comes back - speaking Mongolian, of course. We still don't understand until he reaches through the window, grabs the seatbelt and indicates to put it on. Considering ourselves appropriately chastised, John rebuckles his seatbelt, we roll up the window, continue on our way, and chuckle. For the record, although we always wear seatbelts, we see many people who don't. In fact, it's common for at least the passenger-side seatbelt to be permanently clipped to itself so the car doesn't beep annoyingly while people drive. Children usually sit on laps or bounce around in back seats.

Besides our interaction with the police, we see other vultures on our journey. We sometimes pass huge birds doing their cycle of life thing with livestock carcasses (usually hit by motorists). But this time there are a whole bunch of vultures close enough to the highway for us to get a good view. Many, spread 10-20 feet apart from each other, are just sitting, staring off into space. These are likely Cinerous Vultures, one of the world's largest birds of prey with a ruff behind their head and a wingspan of up to 10 feet.

Zone conference was a wonderful uplift. We received valuable instruction and enjoyed a spiritual feast. Besides seeing so many other volunteers and missionaries, we were able to spend some time with the other American couples in the country and with Elder and Sister Saunders, who were visiting from Japan. Elder Saunders is the area doctor.

Since we've been in Mongolia, there have basically only been two American couples (including us) other than the mission president and his wife. For a while, we were the only ones. Then Harts arrived in December, Horitos in January, and now the Saunderses were visiting for a few days. Four Mongolian couples serve as senior missionaries. But we don't often get to see them, although sweet Sister Suvdaa was in the online English class we taught before Horitos got here to take it over.

Cleaning awards!

As you know, we enjoy exploring when we're in the city, besides getting our car serviced and gathering supplies for apartments and the church. So we walked to an art museum just under 2 miles away from the mission home. It was -24F so we bundled up. By the time we finished our day, we had logged nearly 5 miles in and out of the cold. We felt like we got our workout for the day! 

We got to see a famous art piece called "A Day in Mongolia." It shows a multitude of activities taking place on any given day in the countryside: a birth, a death, a wedding, the shearing of sheep, making felt to cover the gers, and many, many more things you can imagine that happen in a day. You can spend a long time looking at one of these scenes because there is so much going on.

This is only the top corner of the very busy artwork.

We met a contemporary artist whose paper cutting was on display in a special exhibition. Really amazing and intricate detail done using colored paper and various cutting tools!

Black paper cut into one big piece of art and glued on a white
background. Warriors even had different facial expressions!

On our trek we checked out the annual ice sculptures in Sukhbaatar Square. 

This year featured a train.

The train even had seats.

An igloo.

It's hard to see in the picture, but this is a horse.

Each animal of the zodiac was represented in

a separate piece carved with intricate detail.

We saw a giant ice slide again this year. No, we didn't slide down it.
We may actually leave this country without that experience. 

One of a couple of fun dinners together.

Our first bus ride on the UB city bus.
Not as crowded as the next night's ride!

We attended the Nomadic Legends performance and enjoyed traditional Mongolian music.

And contortionism.

We made it safely back to Sainshand. On our way home we delivered an air purifier to some young volunteers in a city along our path home. (We all use air purifiers in our apartments.) The week closed out with a birthday, a major mission announcement, and a youth activity.

Chimka received a surprise birthday visit at work.

Chimka is a pharmacist who attended our last baptism and loved the gooey butter cake we served. She told us that's what she would like for her birthday, so that's what she got.

Right now the Mongolian Mission is the entire huge country of Mongolia and has about 130 missionaries. We have missionaries and volunteers who have to spend 24 hours on a bus to get to zone conference. Some have to fly in. We have learned that in July the mission will split into two: an East mission, where President Kunz will preside, and a West mission. They're still really big areas but will be more manageable for leaders who have to spend so much time with public transport or on less than ideal roads (tracks out across the steppes). 

For our youth activity we watched the broadcast of the 2026 youth theme for the year, discussed the thought-provoking questions it presented, painted pictures that related to the theme, and ate cream puffs.

The youth theme for the year is "Walk With Me" from Moses 6:34. (see https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/inspiration/2026-is-a-year-to-walk-with-him?lang=eng) It's an inspirational story of Enoch, a young prophet who, like many of us, does not feel equal to the task the Lord has called him to do. And he's not. But he learned, like we are learning, that the Lord will walk with us and give us power to fulfill what we have come to this earth to do. It's a powerful message, and we hope and pray our youth (and all of the rest of us) will take it to heart and put it into practice. 

We can walk on water!

We can feed people with our meager offering of
a few loaves and fishes! 

Mongolia Mission Week 62 - A Drive on the Wild Side

 Mongolia Mission Week 62

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). 

This week had so much going on that we slipped part of the week into last week's blog. So we begin this week's blog with Thursday, when we had a Family Home Evening at the church. We've been doing these every two weeks, but with the new year decided to have them once a month. 

This month's event was planned by our young women. They assigned out a spiritual thought and organized several fun games, one of which was "Four Men on a Couch." It's a challenging game where you have to remember people's names, but everyone has taken someone else's name. The youth were up for the challenge, but we weren't. We have a hard time saying Mongolian names, let alone remembering them when their names are switched. We've found that our old brains aren't as flexible as they once were. But we were assigned treats, and that we could do. The girls specifically asked for two of their favorites: banana bread and Jell-O. (Which we make with fruit, fruit juice, and unflavored gelatin)

This is the lap-slapping game where Kathy gets out
every time it's her turn.

On Friday, our youth spread some light at a senior living center. The center has 18 residents. We took them gifts of toilet paper, bananas, and handmade wall decorations and pictures. We also took some games, including checkers, chess (2 popular national favorites) and a blow-up beach ball. The staff gathered about a dozen of the residents around some tables for our game of roll the beach ball and encouraged them to participate, even if they couldn't really see the ball. They certainly knew where it was when it gently bumped their faces! They laughed and had a good time with the game.

This man challenged brave souls to a game of
checkers  He couldn't be beat!

The youth spread some cheer throughout the center.

Taping notes to the doors

Waiting to be carried (in the chair) downstairs by
several sets of muscles - there are no elevators
 in the building.

Then on Saturday, we had a baptism! Minjirmaa, a sweet young woman with a special light, committed to becoming a disciple of Christ. We have such admiration for these youth who respond to the truth of what they're taught and are willing to change their lives for it, even if their families and friends live other standards.

Elder Anand baptized her.

Sisters Grover and Veile taught her.

Sunday was a great day. Minjirmaa was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we had two young men ordained to priesthood offices. 

We can prepare in this life to meet God. Every experience is an opportunity to choose what will draw us closer to Him. For some, it's first learning of God and His love for them - that every person is a child of God. For some, it's that first step to join His path through baptism. For some, it's continuing on His path and each day making choices that bring greater power to do good into our lives. 

Olzii was ordained a deacon
and Temuulen was ordained a teacher.

We had zone conference first thing on Monday morning, so we left immediately after church to drive to Ulaanbaatar. We don't like driving at night due to how hard it is to see the potholes. The first half of our ride was in daylight, but then the sun set. About an hour outside of Ulaanbaatar, we ran into blowing snow in the dark. It wasn't actively snowing, but the wind was picking up the snow from the open steppe and shooting it across the road. One car in our lane (we think it was our lane; it was hard to see) got stuck in a snow drift - not a good thing to happen with a wind chill putting the "feels like" temperature at 50 degrees below zero! And something about the cold or the headwinds meant our car guzzled gas at twice the normal rate.

We found it easier going to stay behind the taillights of another car. But we did make it to a gas station that actually had gas. And an attendant who would pump it for us. (No Mongolian gas stations are self-serve - a fact we're glad about in these temperatures!) The attendant actually had ice crystals in her eyelashes.

Even the gas pump and the hose are wrapped up for the cold!

Stay tuned next week for our adventures in the frozen city. When we go from our little community of 20,000 people to the capital city of 1.5 million, we feel like we're in a different universe. We're always on the lookout for new/interesting sights and sounds. For your amusement, here are a couple of pictures from a past trip - you can only imagine what we will find this time!

One time we wandered around a mall. What a modern concept - it even had escalators! And one store had quite the display of women's nylons - in every color and pattern you could ever want!

Also in Ulaanbaatar we found an egg vending machine. Eggs get lowered by a little elevator, not dropped to the bottom. These must be special eggs because lots of eggs are available for sale the regular way, in various stalls and markets, usually by the egg (bring your own carton or bag). 

While it is bitter cold, the gospel and the people here warm our souls. They have found a way to live and follow the light in inhospitable conditions, and they do it with style. We feel so blessed to know that in any circumstance, God is aware of us and will give us the strength to learn, grow, and endure, no matter what happens. We know that the more we lean on Him, the stronger we become because of Him. 

Mongolia Mission Week 61.5 - Our Claim to Fame: Meeting the Prime Minister

Mongolia Mission Week 61.5

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). 

This week brought transfers. We never know who will be leaving and who will be coming. But Thursday was a day of excitement. Alice and Michelle invited us all over for dinner, hide and seek, and a coloring contest.

And then it was time for the train. Of the six of us serving in Sainshand, only Sister Fifita was transferred to Ulaanbaatar. So two sisters took the overnight train to Ulaanbaatar and then the overnight train back the next day. 

 

Our farewell lunch before Sister Fifita left.

We welcomed Sister Grover to Sainshand, which was a snow-covered city Saturday morning. We never get more than an inch of snow. But it's enough to make things slippery, especially when it packs down and turns into ice.  

This snow will never melt.

People scrape off the snow and carry it away.
We've only ever seen one snowplow.

We were assigned the snack for Saturday's District Council
the day the sisters got back. It became a French toast breakfast.

Then for our youth activity, we rented out a school gym for 2 hours. Apparently this is a common youth activity in this country. When the youth first told us they wanted to rent a gym, we envisioned weights, swimming pools, a big price tag, and wondered how a gym would allow our youth to really interact with each other. But especially in the winter, these kids have nowhere to play volleyball and basketball, two sports the entire population passionately embrace. So they rent school gyms and play hard. 

We played volleyball...

Then basketball....

And wheelbarrow races....

But somehow we managed to get three balls stuck in the rafters. You see, a volleyball got stuck on top of the HVAC ductwork. Then a second volleyball got stuck in the same area, as helpful people threw it up there aiming to get the first one down. Then a basketball got stuck trying to get both volleyballs down. Can you believe a fourth ball then was drafted into the action??? But the end of the story is that a couple of our English students were able to knock the two volleyballs down without getting another ball stuck. We ended the day with only the basketball still stuck. When we turned in the school volleyballs, the employee wanted to know where the basketball was. John showed him the picture and the employee really wanted to know how it got stuck there. There was not an easy way to explain that.

You can see one of the recalcitrant volleyballs hiding
from our attempts to dislodge it.

Sunday was a tough day. Church attendance was low, and one of our speakers didn't show up. But one of our youth did a great job of presenting the Sunday School lesson. And a visitor showed up in time to hear this lesson, which was important. The lesson was made even better by the testimony of an elderly non-member. She never says anything in class, and maybe doesn't understand a lot of what is said, but John specifically called on her. She let people know something she does know very clearly: that we are all children of God. So there was light in a discouraging day. God blesses and uplifts us even when we try to be discouraged. We just need to trust that things are in His hands. And we do. We see and feel undeniable evidence of that.

You get a bonus few days, as we are covering a portion of week 62 in this entry. Our Monday started with receiving a message at 7:30 am asking if we could be downstairs in 30 minutes to meet the Prime Minister. Wait, what? He was visiting our apartment complex. So, we went downstairs to meet him.

Turns out he wasn't quite there yet and no one wanted to stand out in the cold to wait. So we went back to our apartment to wait for a call (Have we mentioned that we hike up 6 flights of stairs to our apartment?) A few minutes later, we were called back downstairs and escorted up another six flights of stairs to an apartment at the other end of our building. The room was full of people, including the Prime Minister and a member of Parliament. And a lot of photographers. We got to shake hands and listen for a few minutes.

The Prime Minister is on the left. Of course, no house
is complete without a bowl of dried curd 

It turns out that our apartment complex is unique in Mongolia. A couple of our buildings are part of an effort to make housing more affordable. There is a "rent to own" plan to make apartments available to some elderly, disabled, single mothers, etc. And a plan where an apartment can be acquired by some people who qualify and are willing to teach English in one of the schools. So this plan was being promoted by the Prime Minister's visit and a special presentation.

The Prime Minister listens to the presentation.

Now we know why there was a heavy security presence (long, black cars and men in black standing around) in our complex.

This was actually a couple of days earlier.
We wondered what was going on. The day
of the visit no one was allowed to enter this area.

Later that day, we attended a graduation ceremony at the Polytechnic College. Our church has developed several free self-reliance classes. The topics include getting a better education, finding a better job, starting your own business, personal finance, and emotional resilience. For the first time in Mongolia, some of these classes are being offered, and our area is piloting them. 

The Polytechnic College is a vocational school for high school students and some adults. Some of the students recently completed a class on getting a better education. Now, some of the teachers graduated from an emotional resilience class, taught online for 12 weeks by MJ, who lives in Ulaanbaatar. He came to Sainshand for the final class and for the graduation ceremony. Eight students graduated and we helped award the certificates. This class is very similar to the classes offered in the U.S., and we hope to spread them across the country.

Helping people help themselves

You can see that our weeks can have a lot of variety, even in the dead of winter. So much of what we're here for is to make connections and spread the light where we can and however we can. Good things are happening in Mongolia!

 

Mongolia Mission Week 60 - Our New Year Comes Glittering In

 Mongolia Mission Week 60

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). 

Glitter, glitter everywhere!

It was the week of the New Year and its celebrations. It started with Baagii, who is the mom in our only fully member family in Sainshand, inviting us over for a dinner of soup, steamed rolls, and buuz - so delicious!

Ulzii, our newest deacon-to-be, won at
his computer game.

As we got back to the apartment, we saw three cars completely decked out in holiday lights. You can see two in the picture, one headed down into the underground parking. On New Year's Eve, there were five of these cars driving through town together. 

Taking his white elephant gift from Christmas seriously, John's holiday celebration consisted of assembling a miniature snowman - 210 little Lego-style pieces. Frosty immediately began instructing the camels on holiday etiquette.

New Year's Eve was on Wednesday, which is a teaching day for English classes at our church. But no students showed up on a holiday evening. The other teachers and Misheel, a good friend and one of our best English-speaking students, came to briefly celebrate New Year's Eve at our apartment. We had a couple of kinds of chicken from a local eatery, chili dogs (a favorite of Sister Fifita's), chex mix, peanut butter truffles, and fruit. (Nice fruit gets shipped in for the holiday - we even had a good watermelon!)

It's hard to find hot dog buns, so John
made some for us.

For some reason, we were struck with
 the urge to make peanut butter truffles.

Sisters Fifita and Veile, us, Misheel, and Elders Anand and Paul.

At about 9:00 pm (just before curfew for the young teachers), everyone but Kathy fired off long confetti canons. (She just stood with her hands over her mouth.) Altogether we had a short but fun celebration. Then the 2 of us saw the new year in not by attending the karaoke celebration in sub-zero temperatures at the town square, but by finding and containing all the confetti as we listened to the pops and bangs of the local fireworks. Ah, the metallic glitter in our apartment! The static made it particularly challenging to release from some surfaces. Despite our best efforts, when we leave this apartment the new residents will most likely find some little bits of clinging glitter somewhere.

After the cleaning, it was still stuck
to the bottoms of house slippers...

And to the ceiling!

This week also included the wolf super moon....

Games and fun with the youth at the church on Saturday.

Sunday was a special day for us even though our church attendance was the smallest since we arrived. Schools don't start again until the end of January or February, so many people have either gone to the city or to the countryside. It was our monthly fast and testimony meeting. On this day members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints fast for two meals (about 24 hours) and donate at least the value of our meals to those in need of material assistance. We offer special prayers during our fast for people and places that need extra help from God. The fast provides nourishment for our spirits and a closeness with God if we approach it in the right frame of mind. Our Sunday meeting that day occurs while we are fasting, and the worship service consists of the spontaneous sharing of testimonies as people are moved by the Spirit.

With the very few in attendance that day, we heard testimonies from most of us assigned to serve here in Sainshand. And from a man who was baptized in Mongolia 19 years ago, hasn't been active in church for most of that time, and attended today. And from our very recently baptized teenager. And from Narankhajid, a 77-year-old non-member who expressed her appreciation to us for her understanding that she is a child of God. Those testimonies were so special.

Narankhajid always enters the church saying "Hello,
children of God!"

Narankhajid loves to attend church and activities, whether they are council meetings, Young Women/Young Men activities, or gospel teaching appointments. She shows up at random times and loves the spirit and belonging she feels at the church even though she doesn't always comprehend what is going on. She will sometimes tell Kathy long stories or share something from her life, which we understand has been a hard one. Kathy listens attentively, and they connect spirit to spirit, even though they don't understand each other's speech.

Joining in the youth activity - but when Narankhajid gets
"out," Hurlee tries to take her turn sitting on the floor so
she doesn't have to.

Kathy matches Narankhajid's expressions as she tells her story.

Sunday also had another blessing for us - the baptism of our granddaughter in Nebraska. Thanks to the blessing of technology, we were able to participate remotely from Mongolia in the middle of our night! We felt a special spirit as we rejoiced with other family members in this life-changing event for her. 

Molly was so excited and so ready for
her baptism!

Another special day for Steven and Stephanie.

And so a new year begins, filled with blessings and new opportunities. And glitter. For each of us! 

Our choices determine our experiences and our joys. Truly. We can't control all things, but we can control how we react to people and experiences in our lives. We know where to turn for peace and joy and how to anchor to what we know is true while we search for answers to our questions. We know we have access to divine help with our burdens and challenges by staying close to Jesus Christ, for that is His plan and His purpose. He promised that if we will keep His commandments, we will have joy. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:11) We bear testimony that this is true.