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!