Mongolia Mission Week 8 - It's a New Year!

 Mongolia Mission Week 8

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).

What an exciting week for us! 

First, we just never know what we'll find as we leave our apartment. The goat head was along the sidewalk across the street from our apartment complex. Another day we saw a small herd of cows being moved via motorcycle.

We got invited to a warm and cozy home for dinner on Sunday night by some gracious members. We ate some delicious traditional foods: huushuur, similar to a meat filled empanada; potato chunks; horse meat; pickled carrot salad; and a warm milk drink. It was all delicious. Don't judge. Turns out horse is pretty good. Since it was during the new year celebratory time, traditional Mongolian folk wrestling was on the TV in the background. It's a style of wrestling where the wrestlers must not touch the ground with anything but their feet. 

New Year's eve was a little quieter than we're used to. We made treats - our Mongolian versions of Chex mix, English toffee,  and a lemon meringue pie. Some ingredients are rather limited (like cereal, which is imported and usually some form of Muesli), but we got creative and it all worked pretty well. We had the other missionaries over to snack and play games for a bit in the afternoon, then had an evening with just the two of us. And hours of fireworks going off around the apartment complex. There was a big party downtown, and apparently people out singing karaoke in sub-zero temperatures, but we stayed in our nice, warm apartment and tried to sleep. We thought being on a mission was a great reason to skip staying up late this year, but it didn't work very well.

It's hard to see the bursts of fireworks.
Random people were just shooting them
off periodically, just when you thought
the show was over.

The town center area was decorated right after Christmas, like the next day.  All of the decorations seem to be Christmasy, but the celebration is for the New Year. The president of the country gives a speech at midnight, and it's a big deal. 

We stopped for a picture at the town square early one evening.

One of the couples in the church here owns a small market. They sent each set of missionaries a New Year's treat - a cake and a large box of various fruits. Fruit is very precious here, as it is all imported. This was wonderful surprise and delicious treat!

We also had our new friend Alice, an English teacher from our secondary school, invite us to lunch at her place and serve us a wonderful cake. She is a thoughtful person with a cute 5 year old daughter who has native-sounding English, due to her mother's careful tutoring. 

The box these cakes come in is intriguing. It's a self contained party kit. The box flaps are perforated to become plates and spoons when separated. How ingenious! 

Then, on January 2nd, a couple of guys from the mission facilities department came to our church with many surprises. They installed several pieces of beautiful new artwork featuring the Savior, installed Wi-Fi, fixed a few things, and arranged for signage to be placed on the outside of our building, which was completed the next day. It's amazing to feel the impact of the artwork in this sacred space. And when people pass our floor to go upstairs to the next level, they look straight down the hallway and see the Savior washing His apostles' feet.

This one was specifically for the 
Relief Society room. Someday we'll
be big enough for a Relief Society!

We have a sweet 15 year old who was baptized just before we got here. She was entranced when she saw this painting and held her finger up as though she wished she could touch the Savior's face. Kathy pointed out the girl at His feet and said the 15 year old's name, so she could put herself into the scene. We don't speak Mongolian, but we can communicate spirit to spirit. She got the message.

In our church space, we also teach an English class for the community on 3 nights of the week. Since we've been here, we've only had 1-6 people show up most nights, so on Thursday the young missionaries posted a video on the city Facebook page to advertise for more students. The video was a parody of a current Mongolian social media trend, changed to have a theme of "Nobody teaches like we teach." It was an instant hit, with over 11,000 views within 24 hours. We had 34 students in class the next night. They all showed up eager to learn - a few adults and some kids of various ages. 

Our medical school students are on a two month break from school for the New Year holiday. So we've been asked to use that time to teach the faculty members' children. Once a week, starting this week, we have a room full (max capacity is 16) of students, probably between 8 and 14 years old, mostly 'tweens.'  Likely to be fun and challenging. We're still assessing their levels, but generally children in Mongolia get some English instruction in school beginning in the 5th grade and before that, most don't know much. The medical school faculty we are teaching in a different class are very basic beginners but are certainly a fun class!

We also participated in the last class of our online group of Mongolian missionaries who are working diligently to learn English, with a goal of getting into the Pathways program. They all have amazing spirits and have been great to get to know, even for the few sessions we've had with them. They're ready to move forward with their goals! The online classes are different than the ones we teach in the community. They are Gospel oriented and all about setting, achieving, and reflecting about goals and working to overcome various emotional learning obstacles. Students in this class focus on developing confidence and faith in themselves and in their Savior for support. It's an inspired program that opens many doors for many people around the world. 

At the end of the week we got invited to a member family's New Year celebration and birthday party for their 2 year old, combined into one event.  So much food and such variety! Besides horse, another popular dish is Tsuivan, which is a noodle dish with meat and vegetables. It also is delicious and very common. We had dumplings, roast beef and rice, and sliced sausage sorts of meats with pickled vegetables arranged artfully on platters. There were candies and fruit and candied fruit. We also got served a kefir drink, which is a probiotic drink made from milk and kefir that produces a yogurt-like sour drink. John is wondering if he ever will acquire the taste for that. 

People keep wondering about the weather. We've been told it's warmer than usual. (!!!!!) Lately we have highs around 20 degrees and lows near zero. With windchill, it can be 20 below at night. The biggest factor is the wind. It doesn't take much breeze to make zero feel really cold on our faces. We find that 12 degrees without wind is downright pleasant for walking, since we brought plenty of warm clothing with us. And when it's that nice, a 30-40 minutes walk home isn't too bad.

So we're staying warm on the outside and also on the inside as we work to serve the people of Mongolia the best we can. We may not know much about a lot of things, but we do know, from the bottom of our hearts and souls, that our Heavenly Father loves His children. All of them, all over the world. It's very evident to us. He knows our struggles, no matter what kinds of lives we are living. We're so grateful that He is willing to bless us all with more light and knowledge and peace when we turn to Him. Have a great year!