Mongolia Mission Week 6

 Mongolia Mission Week 6

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities as missionaries. 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).

First, you never know what you'll find as you wander the streets of Sainshand.  

These are frozen, stiff raw hides laid flat in a pickup.

So, you think we're in a desert, right? Maybe. But we've had three floods, so far! At least in our apartment....Shortly after we got here, the mission apartment guy, Batmunkh, showed up with replacement filters for our water filters. We have one on the bathroom faucet and on the kitchen faucet. He showed John how to replace the filter on the bathroom one, and then John replaced the kitchen one. Batmunkh also tried to tighten the filtered water faucet, which spins around loosely for fun.

The next evening we found a small flood in our kitchen, coming from under the sink. It turns out an o-ring on the new filter has a crack in it, causing a very slow leak. Good thing we could hear a very quiet hiss or we may never have figured out the source of the water.

Then, a couple of days later, we woke up to a soggy living room rug. We also have a 5 gallon water bottle dispenser which had leaked 2.5 gallons of water overnight.  Cleaned it up, dried the rug for several days, and put things back together, assuming we had seated the bottle wrong, only to have it happen again. Seems like an issue with that bottle, as a new bottle works fine.

To avoid additional water issues, we wipe our window sills about 3 times a day. We get so much condensation on the inside of our windows overnight! It runs down onto the window sill - and floor, if we aren't on top of things.  We considered giving up breathing to see if that would help.

Two of the young missionaries left this week. Elder Gendendaram finished his mission, so he went back to the mission home for his final day and meetings. And his companion had to accompany him and pick up a new companion. Sister Brouse got assigned to a new area, so her companion had to accompany her to the mission home and pick up a new companion. We saw all four of them off at the train station for their 12-hour overnight ride. It was the coldest night we've had so far because the train station is on top of a hill that catches all the wind! We kind of laughed at the food huts which are outside at the station. And it was strange to be alone in the city for a couple of nights without supervision, but you'll be happy to know that we did fine. And now we have 2 new missionaries to love!

Food huts

Most Mongolians don't celebrate Christmas, but they celebrate the end of the year with parties, Christmas trees, and lights. We went to a school new year celebration held at the Children's Palace, a large octagonal building in the center of town. There was a story narrated in Mongolian, but we enjoyed the music and dancing by the children of all ages. Most musical numbers were familiar, including parts of English songs. The costuming was fun.

This is the Mongolian Santa with 2 people 
representing years 2024 and 2025.

The dancers and singers did an excellent job,
knew exactly where they needed to be, and 
seemed to have fun.

We held a Christmas celebration at the church on the Saturday before Christmas. Kids made decorations, and a member loaned us a tree for the occasion. We ordered 6 pizzas and 60 huushuur, a traditional Mongolian hand-held meat pie. John made rolls, Kathy made a huge cabbage salad, together we made chocolate meringue pies (rectangular, since pie plates are hard to come by), and the missionaries all made desserts, too.  

There was a wonderful spirit that night. A nice group of about 30 attended, mostly kids. We sang, we ate, we watched a nativity video, and many stayed to play games and socialize. Several sweet kids stayed to sweep and mop (since the desert grit is always trying to come in the doors). It was an amazing event. And we came home exhausted from a busy and stressful day.

Chocolate meringue pies - turns out 
you can use lemon juice instead of 
cream of tartar!

Kids loved stringing strands of some
Fruit Loops that we found in a store.

Many dressed up, because they knew
how important the occasion is.

This is our chapel/cultural hall, complete with
a video screen fire.

The kids really prize fruit. It's fairly
expensive here.

The next day, on Sunday, we had a special Christmas worship service with songs, the reading of scriptures, and testimony. It is a special opportunity every year to pause and pay thoughtful attention to His birth as we sing and talk about angels, a new star, shepherds, a manger in a stable, and wise men who recognized miracles and humbled themselves to honor and worship the God of heaven and earth. It is a special opportunity especially this year, when we are trying more than ever to be close to Him and do His work among His children. Imperfect as we are, we know that He loves us and supports us and will bless others through us. It is our prayer for you that you will feel His love for you and His acceptance of your efforts to be a little bit better every day.

Our group after services, minus a couple who left.

Mongolia Mission Week 5

Mongolia Mission Week 5 

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities as missionaries. 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 we started teaching in one of the secondary schools here (high school with grades 6-12). We teach 7th, 8th, and 9th grade classes: 5 classes on Tuesdays and 1 on Thursdays. We've also coordinated with the Medical School to have an English class for their medical students and an English class for their teachers each week.

The students in the secondary school begin their class by standing by their desks. When the teacher says, "Hello, students," they say, "Hello teacher" and wait to be told to sit down. They love saying "Hello" to us in the hallways. We're still celebrities. Each class seems to have a couple of students who know basic English fairly well and a couple who don't know English well at all. We teach lessons prepared by the BYU English International Language Center to focus on conversational English. The English teachers at the school work with the students on the other days of the week; our classes are really a chance for the students to practice speaking with a native English speaker.

We also have helped with a weekly online class specifically for Mongolian missionaries who are learning English. Missionaries who finish this class are ready to start the Pathways program to prepare to go to BYU-Idaho if they choose. It's been amazing to hear these missionaries talk about how their missions have allowed them to see people's lives change for the good, and it's amazing to hear them pray in English but also the language of the Spirit.

Last week, we promised that we would talk about interesting food finds, including Heinz Pineapple Ketchup. Sometimes it's hard to tell what foods are really "Mongolian" and what foods are not. We have found that in the stores and markets we've visited, there are freezer bags full of various dumplings (sometimes in large bags so you can take however many you want), and refrigerator cases full of interesting sausages of all sizes. Then there was this one (and it's probably not really "traditional," even though the picture implies otherwise):

These patties are beef and mutton.
They're pretty good!

But what has surprised us is an interesting and eclectic variety of foods imported from other places, and often the selection is changeable, depending on how easy things are to import, we think. Many are German and Russian foods and snacks. But there are Polish, French, Scandinavian, and even Kirkland foods. We have Google Translate on our phones, but we can't just set the default language to translate Mongolian text into English text. We have to set it to "Detect Language" and then translate what we find into English. Here are a few of the interesting things we've found:

Ice cream flavored Snickers

Texas Tenderloin Steak and Brazil BBQ Pork Rib
flavored Lay's from Viet Nam. We tried Cheese Ruffled
ones, but they didn't taste like what we were used to
because  they had a fair amount of  (non-hot) spice.

Strawberry cheesecake Oreos

Ok, it wasn't Heinz. Del Monte Pineapple ketchup.

Must be for New Year's celebrations.
Stacks and stacks of Coke!

Lobster flavored Lay's. These are really good!

Packages of vegetarian steak. Hmmm.

This is a salad we ordered to share at a 
restaurant. It has beef sirloin, chicken, bacon,
veggies (including beets & apples w/mayo),
pineapple, olives, and a couple of dressings.

Other interesting sights:

We saw this car go up the street. Luckily, 
it went to our apartment complex so 
we could get a picture. Hard to miss!

In the two weeks we've been in Mongolia, it has only snowed once where we are. We think it snowed. Or frosted very hard. We could only tell by the footprints in the playground.

This was a surprise. Snow is actually
pretty scarce here, although there is
always ice in some shady spots. 

A cow randomly browsing outside of our 
apartment building. You can see the signs of
growth in this area. The city (of 20,000) is
preparing for several major industries 
coming in the next few years. 

We're meeting the members in the area and starting to learn their names. Mongolian missionaries stood next to us when we spoke in church to translate what we said, and that was an interesting experience. 

When Elder Maxwell dedicated this land for the preaching of the Gospel in 1993, he promised some amazing blessings to the country and the people. He promised that they would become a beacon in the area and that they would remain free. At that point, they had just kicked out communism and were trying to figure out how to be a republic. It's an interesting promise for a country sandwiched in between two communist giants. But they have done a good job of creating a modern national identity, and Elder Anderson, who recently visited, said, "The Lord is brooding over Mongolia." That statement creates a nice picture of a hen brooding over chicks. We see such potential in these young members and these young missionaries. They have such strong spirits and amazing faith. It's great to be a part of this work!

Mongolia Mission Week 4

 Mongolia Mission Week 4

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities as missionaries. 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).

Our new home away from home is Sainshand, Mongolia, a city of about 20,000 in the Dornogobi (East Gobi) province, in the Gobi Desert. Sainshand is close to the China border on one of the main roads Chinese people use to come to Mongolia for work. It's a 12 hour (usually overnight) train ride from the capitol, but our mission president drove us, so it only took about 5.5 hours. Along the way we saw domesticated but free roaming (no fences) horses, cows, sheep, goats, and camels.

All the camels had their backs to us
except for Clyde.

Small herd of horses along the road

Symbolic gate of Sainshand, "White Door," with Pres. Namgur

We are getting settled in nicely and have already learned to be grateful:

• We are grateful when the wind doesn't blow, because then it isn't as cold.
• We are grateful when the wind does blow, because then the air is cleaner.
• We are grateful when the air is clear, because we don't have to wear N-95 masks.
• We are grateful for the smoke in the air, because it creates beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
• We are grateful that we are getting so much exercise. We walk almost everywhere.
• We are grateful that it is so easy to get a ride when we don't want to walk (more later).
• We are grateful there isn't an elevator in our building, as we are getting lots of exercise to our apartment. (Maybe not as grateful when we were moving in with all our luggage, but we had help).

We felt like celebrities when we arrived Tuesday and got standing applause from students and leaders of the school where we will teach. There were posters with our names on them, balloons, gifts, and a couple of carefully prepared musical and dance performances by students. The principal expressed appreciation not only for us, but for our sponsoring group, Deseret International Charities, which donates a lot of time, materials, and food in this country. Recently blankets and kitchen supplies were donated for children who live in dorms during the school year and live with their nomadic families during the summers. The governor of the province also gave us gifts.

We live on the 6th floor of a fairly new apartment complex. It's nice and warm. Nice views, nice location. 20 minute walk to where we teach. 20 minute walk the other way to the main grocery store, but there's a market in one of the buildings in our apartment complex.

No one plays on the playground in Dec. Daytime temps are in the high teens Fahrenheit.

View from our apartment

We have already made bread (when the store was out), tacos with homemade tortillas and fresh salsa (for our district meeting), and John's sister's homemade hot cocoa recipe. All wonderful comfort foods. And we've tried several dishes at local places that were delicious, too!

Church is about a 40 minute walk (did we mention we are getting exercise?) and on the 2nd floor of a commercial building. It's a dedicated space and is nice. Still a small congregation, with 15-20 attending on a Sunday (including 6 of us missionaries). So it's not big enough to be a "branch"; it's a "group" and has only been organized for about a year.

These are the young elders and sisters in our district -
our new best friends! They are such dedicated missionaries
and volunteers who are consecrated to the work of the Lord!

The missionaries from Mongolia are called to teach the gospel and proselyte. The missionaries from America have a responsibility to teach English in the schools and at night in the community. They assist the Mongolian missionaries in teaching the gospel when asked.

John is now the group leader at church. There are two families in the group with Melchizedek priesthood holders, and there are several boys from 7-13 years old who like coming to things at the church because they like the way it feels. Their parents send them to our community English classes that the young volunteers teach 3x a week, but the boys also come to sacrament meeting and mutual. There are some teenage girls who also come alone, which demonstrates an inspiring desire to learn; some are quite recent converts. One was teaching Kathy Mongolian phrases by writing them in Kathy's notebook, and also asked "Have you ever seen a temple?" She was so excited when Kathy said yes. And so excited when Kathy remembered her name. We are impressed with the sweet spirits of the people we've met, and with the spirit we've felt in this place.

Our church is the 2nd floor of this building.
The building also holds a pharmacy, an ATM, 
a spin class, and a tattoo parlor - not sure what else!

One of our most interesting experiences is transportation. It's a combination of hitchhiking and Uber. As you walk down the street, if you put out your hand, someone will probably stop and let you in. They usually already have another passenger. You tell them where you want to go (or hold up the address, in our case) and they take you there. You pay 1000 MNT per person or about 70 cents each. Distance doesn't matter. No haggling over price, and no tip. It's a set price. By whom, we have no idea. But it works. Evidently, abduction isn't a thing here-

We haven't pulled out all of our thermals yet (much), but we also haven't felt the urge to do a whole lot of wandering around and exploring. These people are hardy! And the children are so cute in layers of puffy coats, snow pants, sturdy boots, and mittens with strings that go through the coat armholes so they don't get lost. 

• We are grateful to know that God loves all His children and wants them to have joy - and answers their prayers.
• We are grateful to be serving Him in Mongolia in whatever way He wants us to bless His children.
• We are grateful to know that Jesus Christ lived on this earth, atoned for our sins, was resurrected, lives again today, and leads and guides His church through a prophet and apostles. 
• We're grateful for the chance to celebrate His birth and that a member of our group suggested that we all text out a group scripture about Christ every day to prepare for Christmas. It's fun to hear from everyone and add hearts to their posts. 

That's all for now. Next week we will probably feature some of the fun food items we have found. Did you know Heinz makes pineapple ketchup??

Mongolia Mission Weeks 1-3

Mongolia Mission Weeks 1-3

Our hope with this blog is to share highlights with our family and friends about our exciting opportunities and awesome responsibilities as missionaries. 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).

On Thursday, November 7, 2024, we were set apart as missionaries by President Higbee, our new stake president (we were his first missionaries). It was special to have Kathy's dad there.

We spent two weeks in Provo learning about our responsibilities as volunteer English teachers in Mongolia and getting pumped up spiritually. We had some family time, so we visited temples in the area; we also went to the Luminaria at Thanksgiving point with Kristina (#2 daughter), Matthew (#3 son), and his family. 

There are some amazing and inspiring murals at the MTC. (Missionary Training Center)

Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point in Utah

After our MTC experience, we spent the weekend with Jennifer (#1 daughter) and her husband, Matt. She made us a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday so we wouldn't miss out on a favorite holiday. Kristina joined in the festivities. 

We also got to spend a weekend with Bobby (#1 son) and his family in Orem.

Headed off to Mongolia!

Finally,  on Tuesday, November 26, we flew out of SLC headed to Mongolia by way of Los Angeles and Seoul, Korea. We met a missionary traveling alone to Pusan, Korea and traveled together to Seoul. We landed in Seoul at the same time as the biggest November storm to hit Seoul in recorded history. 140 flights were canceled, including those to Mongolia and Pusan. So the three of us spent 12 hours on Thanksgiving Day in the airport. Good thing we'd already had our feast! It's also a good thing that we never travel without snacks-

Nearly every flight was canceled or delayed that day!

After the missionary departed on a high speed train, we spent two nights in Seoul waiting for our new flight. We visited our temple there as well as a couple of famous places: the Gyeongbokgung Palace, where it is customary to rent period costumes to visit (we didn't know, so we went in missionary clothes :)),  and then the Bukchon Hanok Village, restored traditional Korean houses. 

Seoul, Korea LDS Temple

Bukchon Hanok Village

Somebody(ies) in Korea made use of the snow!

Lunch in Seoul

This cab driver had so much bling! He had created a home away from home for himself and his guests!

On Saturday Nov 30,  we made it to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We were glad to have made it and even more excited that our luggage also arrived! We stayed in mission headquarters for a couple of days, met lots of missionaries, and helped with a ward potluck (John made 75 dinner rolls) and a Young Single Adult Family Home Evening. 

There was quite a spread at the potluck, 
and even a plate of horse meat.

The Ulaanbaatar airport

View from the apartment on the 5th floor
 of the mission office.

On Monday we will meet with the Mission President and his wife and receive our assignment. Most likely, we will be leaving the capitol. We have really seen the Lord's hand in getting this far along in our adventure and are excited for what's next!