Mongolia Mission Week 36 - We're sorry, Mongolia is closed...

Mongolia Mission Week 36

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). 

Well, it seems Mongolia is closed. Last week was a holiday week due to Naadam in the capitol, maybe extending into the first part of this week. But on Thursday in Sainshand we were out looking for office supplies, vegetables, fruit, etc. Every place we went seemed to be closed. Even places that were open did not have very much or very fresh produce; we wondered if their suppliers were closed. Attendance at classes and at church was sparse. Everyone seems to be vacationing.

However, we still found ways to party.

Earlier in the week, Elder and Sister Saunders, our Area Medical Advisor (AMA) couple, came to Sainshand. They cover the Asian North Area, which includes Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, and Guam/Micronesia. They have a big job providing advice for medical issues. They came to Sainshand to see what medical services exist in case missionaries or English volunteers need them (gulp!). If one of us needs medical attention, the AMA decides where they should go for treatment - to a local place, to the capital by car or ambulance (no options to fly), or to another country. The Saunders checked out a local clinic, a couple of pharmacies, and our hospital.  Their next stop was Khovd, at the far western end of Mongolia, for similar visits. We're glad that they (and we) know what medical care is available and what the standards are.

We had fun showing Saunderses around for a couple of days. Of course we took them and Jay, our friend from the mission office (their driver/translator), out to the famous energy center/monastery. We've shown pictures of Khamariin Khiid in prior posts, but there are always more to share. One of the buildings is in the middle of a renovation, but the door was unlocked and no one stopped us when we wandered in.  Everything was dusty or in disarray, but it was fun to see the banners, carvings, and artifacts.

So many things we wish we understood better,
like the symbolism and significance in this art.

Our tour group of the Saunders, Jay, and us.

Now inside the cave where Dulduityn Danzanravjaa 
studied and meditated. He founded the monastery here 
and is a highly respected pioneer of the area and arts.

A small world story: Elder Saunders' grandfather, Clarence Saunders, was John's bishop in the tiny town of Vale, Oregon when John was a child. And Sister Saunders' cousin, Mark Searle, and his wife provided our Member Leader Support training before we came to Mongolia. 

Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the acronym MTC is widely recognized as referring to a Missionary Training Center. There are 80,000 missionaries throughout the world and all go to one of the MTCs located somewhere in the world. There isn't one in Mongolia, but there is an MTC Resort on the way out to the monastery, so we found that humorous. 

And some camels posing for us - our
best "up close" experience along the road.

This week our church group held our first Family Home Evening FHE) since our arrival at the beginning of December. Families and family relationships are a key priority within our church. These are the people we were sent to earth to support and protect, and in these trying times we need to intentionally work to strengthen those relationships. Our prophets have counseled families to set aside one night a week for an evening together with a gospel lesson, an activity, and a treat. Strong families make strong communities and strong countries. We've appreciated the feelings we've developed within our own family as we've bonded together over the years through FHE and similar activities. Some activities have been more successful than others, and sometimes relationships go through growing and stretching patches (hey, we're all mortal), but we've always clung to the promise of prophets that the cumulative effect of the efforts will pay off. And they have.

But we live in a place where most people are the only members in their families, so we've decided that twice a month we will hold FHE as a church family, knowing the benefits will spill out into their own families. Invitations were shared with both members and friends, and we didn't really know what to expect. But we had 21 attend our first attempt. It was a great night.

It took 3 people plus one eating a sucker to start
and stop the music for "musical chairs."

Another day we were at the church and experienced a sudden and terrific thunderstorm like we've never seen here before. The clouds gathered so quickly, then lightening, thunder, torrents of rain, and the streets turned into rivers. After about 15 minutes, all went back to normal except for some drizzles coming in through the tops of the church windows, which are not used to precipitation from that direction.

This is a normally dry creek bed that
runs through the city!

A couple of boys interrupted their basketball
game in the rain to make "water angels" 
in the puddles on the court. Rain is novel!

Last week we mentioned we started an IELTS class. We didn't know what to expect with all the travel and holiday-taking that happens during the summer. We set the class up for 90 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after our regular church conversational English classes, and we structured it in such a way that people can miss some classes without getting totally lost. Now we've had about 6 classes, and it keeps gaining momentum - every one has new students. This week we had 6 new students, all wonderful people we didn't know before and with whom we have made a great connection!! It is so much fun working with adults and older students who already know quite a bit of English and are very motivated to learn more!

Even though we have a car, we often walk places or take a walk when we get home from teaching. Turns out, sandbur stickers are a menace here, too, just like at home!

On our way home from church we sometimes walk through a mostly concrete park filled with trees, a fountain, and  some exercise equipment. It's colorfully lighted at night.

Soft ice cream is a really big deal here. There are so many vendor huts that appeared for the summer and are open every night as people emerge to enjoy the moderate temperatures of dusk. One night we passed a bench of teens all enjoying an ice cream cone. Fruit flavors are common. The white ice cream is called "milk flavor," which is a true description. We don't think they use vanilla, which isn't found in stores except those that specialize in imports for foreigners. When we find vanilla extract in the city, a 16 ounce bottle is about $20.

And for your other food reports for the week, we made skillet popcorn for the Young Men and Young Women movie activity. It took a lot of popcorn for 20 of us! It's a lot more work than making brownies!

We also tried making a goat pot roast. It turned out delicious, even if the picture is overshadowed by the homemade bread loaves, which we prefer to purchased bread.

There are so many good things happening. We got to meet our Medical Advisors and form new friendships. We had an amazing first Family Home Evening. Our IELTS class keeps growing. We also spent a lot of time working to get local young women enrolled to attend the first Young Women's Camp to be held by our church in Mongolia. It looks like our little group in Sainshand will have 6-8 young women attend. So much good is happening, even though Mongolia seems to be closed for the holiday!

Mongolia Mission Week 35 - The biggest festival of Mongolia - Naadam

 Mongolia Mission Week 35

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). 

For this week, we drove to Ulaambaatar on Monday, had Zone Conference with our new mission president on Tuesday, then stayed in the city and went with two other American senior couples to the Naadam opening ceremonies in the Central Stadium. It was such a celebration! So much going on all at the same time for two hours!

This large stadium is set among new apartment
buildings. The city is truly a mix of old and new.

There is really no way to adequately describe our experience. Naadam is the biggest holiday/festival of the year in Mongolia. It's a celebration of several different things: the establishment of the first statehood of Mongolia, the anniversary of the Great Mongol Empire, the anniversary of restoration of national independence, and the anniversary of the People's Revolution. Naadaam celebrates the "three manly sports" - archery, horse racing, and wrestling. The traditional food for the holiday is khuushuur - fried, hand-held meat pies. Naadam gets celebrated on different days in different towns and provinces of the country, but the official opening is in the capitol city.

This was our ticket to the festivities.
It describes what we were celebrating.

The first organized statehood of Mongolia was the Xiongnu Empire in 209 BC, as you can see on our ticket. Then 819 years ago was the formation of the Mongol Empire by Chinggis Khan in 1206. It's also been 114 years since Mongolia's independence from China's Qing dynasty and 104 years since the Russian Red army defeated the White army, creating the Mongolian People's Republic in 1921. So they celebrate all of the above in this one festival. The first truly democratic elections were held in July, 1990, but that doesn't seem to be part of Naadam celebrations. That evidently is part of a smaller celebration of Democracy and Human Rights Day in December.

We enjoyed the pageantry of the opening ceremony.

The "Nine White Banners" were brought out and carried
by riders on white horses before being placed in the
stadium. Round banners with horse hair.

Streets were lined with vendors.(The
white tents in the background.)

The riders paused before entering the stadium.

There was a rotating stage in the background.

The track was a nice place for horse
demonstrations, including fast riders
who shot arrows at a target while riding.

Patriotic fireworks

The program began with a parade of people riding horses, the setting up of the banners, a speech by a very important person (maybe the President? We're not sure), and the singing of the national anthem. Following that, we listened to singers, saw different kinds and ages of dancers and contortionists, and watched trick horse riding. There were multiple stages with a variety of performances happening at the same time. Pretty awesome!

Outside the stadium were seemingly hundreds of tents selling goods and food, mostly khuushuur.  Khuushuur are usually half-moon shaped, folded over on one side with a seam along the arc side. For Naadam they are flat like a pancake. (We bypassed several vendors whom we thought were selling only flat bread - then we realized that Naadaam khuushuur is flat!) A dough circle is made, chopped meat and onions are encased in it (basically a ball of dough filled with meat); then it is rolled out flat and fried. We stood in line for a very long time to get a few for lunch. When the ceremonies finish at 1:00, everyone is hungry and heads to the vendors! But it was worth the wait.

Then we went back in to watch some of the wrestling, with many matches going on simultaneously. We were told that anyone who wants to participate can go on the field and find an opponent. Certain strategic positioning happens, however, between the most important competitors. Wrestling was  traditionally used as a way to train warriors and demonstrate prowess, and the wrestling uniforms have many layers of symbolism if not much fabric. Lore has it that the uniforms accentuate the bare chests of the wrestlers because there once was a girl who beat all of the male wrestlers, so the uniform now leaves no room for doubt.

The match is lost when someone touches the ground with anything other than hands or feet. So when you watch the sport, you see lots of men standing fairly still while they push against each other's shoulders or arms. 

Most of the people in boot-length clothes are coaches
who hold their wrestlers' hats and offer encouragement.

Also outside, we saw many of the American teachers and some of the Mongolian missionaries. Several ended up being interviewed and shown on local news casts. We got interviewed, briefly, but don't know if the footage was ever used. The point was that Mongolians appreciate foreigners wearing their traditional clothing and participating in their culture. They were excited to see us at least trying to fit in.

The horse racing venue is at another location 30 km to the west of Ulaanbaatar, and we needed to head east to get home, so we didn't see that. The archery took place in a nearby stadium, but we didn't know about it at the time. We were told by Mongolians that it's pretty boring to watch anyway. But we had a great time experiencing as much as we did and look forward to seeing what Naadaam is like in our area.

For more pictures and videos of what we saw, check the Google photos link: Naadam photos

As mentioned above, we were in the city for Zone Conference. It was the first with our new mission president, President Kunz, and his family. It was a wonderful, spiritual meeting. President Kunz, Sister Kunz, the Assistants to the President, our Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders provided wonderful training and a spiritual lift. As with all callings in the Church, each leader is called with divine timing for special purposes. President Namgur and his family accomplished miracles while here. Now it is President Kunz's time, and his impact is already evident. He's been here two weeks and landed on his feet, already working and leading the mission - and hasn't stopped since. It's amazing to see how smoothly transitions can work. But President Kunz says it's like boarding a moving train.

The Kunz family. They had 4 zone conferences this week!

Even though our leaders are only mortal, and even though President Kunz may (gasp!) have some failings (which we haven't found), the Spirit has borne witness to us multiple times in our lives that in spite of failings by mortal leaders, the Lord's work goes on and He blesses our lives anyway. His work goes on within His timetable and in His way. In spite of, and sometimes because of, weaknesses. In fact, we have both had leadership callings and have been very grateful for that principle and grateful to people who have shown us charity and supported us in spite of our failings.

President Kunz in action, teaching the gospel.

Sister Kunz is also a wonderful teacher!

Our District

And, as is becoming more common when we go to zone conference, we found some old (young) friends who served with us in Sainshand.

Sister Taylor, who is about to go home.

Sister Tumenjargal, who is now a Sister
Training Leader

While in the capital we found a "Costco." Well, not really. It's a small store sandwiched into a maze of other shops. It's about the size of our living room. But it uses the signage and sells a few Kirtland products, like a nice selection of nuts. 

 

We found miniature Reeses cups!
And chili and lime gummy bears-

We are always looking for food items in Ulaanbaatar that we can't find in Sainshand. During our search for powdered sugar in a local grocery store, we came across frozen sheep heads. Two days later they were all gone.

And we found the biggest and best hamburger we think exists in Mongolia. The fries were delicious, too. These were actually slightly salted, which seems to be unusual based on the places we've tried French fries. Most fries have no salt.

As we headed home, we appreciated how much the roads are improved! Most potholes have been filled since our March and May trips, and some sections are completely repaved. On our way to the city, we had to take an alternate (dirt and dust) route that paralleled the road they were repaving. But a lot of projects like this are very fast. It resulted in a nice drive home back to Sainshand.

As we left the city, there must have been 15-20 trucks parked along the road, pretty evenly spaced, all selling watermelons! And a few semis, as well. Of course, we had to stop and take one with us - a watermelon, not a truck.

We also saw multitudes of people camping along the streams in the wide open spaces. Just like Americans, Mongolians use holidays for an opportunity to go camping. These are probably the people who bought up all the sheep heads in the grocery store!

People camp in tents next to friends and relatives'
gers, some with a whole community of horses, too. 

Horses going home from the races, evidently.

And a ger packed on top of a car instead of a camel. 
That's modernization, for you!

Also, the main Naadam festival may be in Ulaanbaatar, but every province, city, and village has its own. Most areas hold them on the weekends around July 8-15. In Ulaanbaatar, the official holidays are July 10-15. But in our Dornogobi province, it's July 29-31. So stay tuned for how it's celebrated here in a later post!

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.