Mongolia Mission Week 22 - Being in the dark!

 Mongolia Mission Week 22

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'll get to the "in the dark" in a bit. 

First, we finally made it to a local museum. Small but fascinating. It is focused on the history of our province, Dornogovi, or East Gobi. The Gobi used to be filled with freshwater rivers and lakes with a humid climate. Therefore, it is known as a very productive region for the discovery of dinosaurs, including fossilized dinosaur eggs and nests. According to area specialists, the velociraptor and protoceratops were also discovered here. And recently, the largest fully preserved dinosaur claw.

Thigh bone horns that look like the noses adorning
some Buddhist masks. Many things like this we just
have to speculate about.

One of our church members accompanied us and
tried to be helpful, despite the language barrier.

We were amazed at the amount of metal 
rivets/bolts in this ancient carriage wheel.

Someone in this painted fabric did not like the soup.

We found intricate metalwork or
paintings on ancient musical instruments.

One of our teaching responsibilities is at a medical school here that draws from the 5 eastern provinces. There's a desperate need to train medical people to work in these rural areas. A new campus was recently announced to be built, and construction has begun right next door to where we teach.

Every construction site includes a few gers. Most
likely used for tool and material storage, it's 
possible that some construction workers stay onsite.

Alice, whom we've mentioned before, coordinates our assignments at the secondary school where we teach. We invited her and the young American English teachers to dinner and to celebrate her birthday. She is such a wonderful friend and helps us with all our questions and issues. She speaks excellent English.

Alice's birthday candle in a sweet jello salad,
which is an unknown here. Mongolians make
 their own savory gelatin that contains little bits 
of meat and vegetables and is served in slices.

Last week we mentioned a change in the weather from 75 to 35 degrees. It came with strong winds and actually snowed several inches of snow, the most we've had all winter. But everything bounced back to the 70s a couple of days later. And then 80 degrees. Things got mushy really fast, which isn't fun when we try our best to keep the church floors clean.

On Friday, April 11th, there was a city-wide power maintenance outage scheduled from 6 am to 8 pm. It was the day of the blizzard and a good day for everyone to just stay home. But then the outage was rescheduled for Saturday, so the 6 of us gathered at our apartment to watch General Conference in English.

And then it became a spa night.

Not our idea. It was he who will not be named.

However, moving the power outage to Saturday ruined our Conference plans for our church group. We had planned to have a pancake breakfast and watch two sessions of Conference (each two hours long). We had to cancel and reschedule that to the following Saturday to watch along with holding our Easter Mutual activity. 

For the outage, we planned ahead for cold meals, including The Everything Raisin Bread peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. (John bakes most of the bread we eat, and when Kathy requested raisin bread, we didn't have enough raisins. So we also used all the craisins we had, all the dried mangos, all the dates, and some pecans. Turned out delicious and probably can never be recreated.)

We went to the church in the afternoon, just in case any of the youth showed up for Mutual, and to clean everything for Sunday. One young man came,  so we taught him how to play the Skyjo card game. Then we went home before dark.

Because then it was really dark. The outage didn't end at 8 pm as scheduled. It lasted until 2 am. The only lights were flashlights in some of the apartments. No streetlights. It was pretty eerie.

Our romantic, flashlight-lit living room.

The only lights we could see were apartments 
with flashlights or cell phone lights in use.

On Sunday, our group gathered to watch 3 sessions of General Conference (in Mongolian) with all who wanted to join. (We just read along in English.) Over 20 people attended, mostly youth 10-16 years old, and mostly non-members. We set up tables with gospel coloring pages and similar activities. Between the first two sessions we had a potluck lunch.

John matches the men of the Tabernacle Choir!

Between the first and second sessions, Kathy sent all the kids outside to pick up garbage with their pent-up energy. Between the second and third, we walked as a group to the "kissing dinosaurs" which are just outside of the museum.

We don't complain (much), but sometimes the water we get in our bath leaves us feeling we were cleaner before the bath. This is the water fresh from the tap before we used it one bad day! We don't know if it's influenced by the wind or the melting snow or just the rust in the pipes, but it seems to be worse after a storm, like it comes from a surface source. Good thing we have filtered water for other uses.

So, it was a challenging and wonderful week. Storms, power outages, forced changes to plans, and dirty water. Yet, we were able to watch Conference in English and Mongolian, spend time with so many people who are important to us. It was a humbling and joyful experience to hear people pray for the missionaries. We know that many of you do, and we thank you! We want you to know that your prayers work. 

We appreciate receiving messages of hope and inspiration from prophets, apostles, and other leaders chosen by God. It's amazing how much peace, joy, and hope come from a knowledge of God's plan for His children. It's nice to be reminded of what is important during our time on earth so that we can enjoy the blessings He has prepared for us after this life.