Mongolia Mission Week 23 - Random pictures and stories we've been dyeing to show you

 Mongolia Mission Week 23

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). 

Random thread 1: Our students at the 3rd school (named such because it was the 3rd school built in town) were back in school after a three week break. One week was a study at home week at the end of the last semester followed by two weeks of vacation. So, for our first week back, we reviewed with them topics from prior weeks - things they like, chores, what they do in the morning, etc. 

For one activity, we divided the class into two teams, gave each team a piece of chalk or a whiteboard marker (depending on the room), and had them take turns listing things they like. We were amazed at how many English words they knew. Their teachers were amazed at how many English words they knew. Competition spurs great effort. It was wonderful to watch the more advanced English speakers help the struggling speakers.

In this class, one team feared the other team would see
their words and copy, so they created a human wall
to protect the precious info.

Random thread 2: There's a certain amount of Korean influence on the food here, maybe because a fair number of Mongolians go to South Korea to work for a few years and like what they taste there. Some come back and open Korean restaurants. We see kimchee in grocery stores. 

One of the other foods is "kimbop," which is a Korean rice roll, somewhat similar to a California roll type of sushi, only they usually contain a hot dog rather than fish. Kimbops are in most snack food stores and vary a bit in composition and taste. The best ones we've had were made by Sister Tumenjargal, so we invited the sisters over on their preparation day to teach us how she makes them. Hers are very non-traditional. She has adapted them to her taste and uses the seaweed wrapper, then cooked rice, siracha sauce, mayo, a small layer of mashed potatoes, chicken cooked with a chili sauce, and scrambled eggs. Unusual, but delicious!

Kathy rolling up her kimbop

Random thread 3: It was time to go to Ulaanbaatar for another Zone Conference. These take place every six weeks. This time we drove instead of taking the train, which is both good and bad. We got there faster and got to travel in the daylight on our own schedule, but we had to stay awake and constantly scrutinize the road for potholes. It's quite an obstacle course, and some of those potholes are big enough to swallow half of our car! Google says it will take 5.5 hours, but it takes us 7.

Luckily, sometimes there are fun things to pay attention to. The entire 280 miles is open range (no fences) so we get close up looks at some of the animals along the way. 

Turns out Mongolians aren't the only consumers
of mares' milk!

Storm clouds on the horizon, and we eventually
passed through a little cloud burst - a first for us here.

Zone Conference was wonderful. Great to get some spiritual uplift and inspired instruction.

Our district won all the apartment cleaning awards.
We got to present awards since the Leavitts are now
serving remotely. We didn't do the checks this time.

After the conference we went to a Chinese restaurant and discovered some amazingly good dishes.

Last time we were in the city, the Choijin Lama Temple Museum was closed but looked interesting. This time we got to visit. It was one of the most impressive Buddhist temples we've been in, and we visited several in China. Mongolians adopted Buddhism during the period of time when they were part of China (until the early l900's), and some Mongolians feel that it should be considered the national religion today. 

Photography isn't allowed inside the buildings,
but there are such wonderful construction and
artistry in the design and artifacts.

Set in the city among the most modern structures.

Kathy disobeyed the sign and didn't 
mind her head - said it didn't apply
to her!

We saw interesting construction of glass
being placed over the concrete structure,
turning it from rough to modern.

More animals on the way home. We love them 

and especially enjoy the young ones of Spring.

Random thread 4: We got back home Friday evening and immediately started boiling eggs and making some eggs dyes for coloring Easter Eggs with our church youth the next day. We could not find commercial dyes, even in the city, because Easter is not really known or celebrated in this country. So we found recipes for making dyes using boiled purple cabbage, boiled onion skins, and ground turmeric.

The liquid after boiling purple cabbage
turns eggs a beautiful blue. If you boil
tumeric with purple cabbage, the dye
is dark green.

Boiling onion skins to extract color

The eggs colored using our natural dyes.

On Saturday we made a pancake breakfast for the group and watched the last two sessions of General Conference, delayed from the prior week by the all day power outage.

Last week we had a fair number of kids watch 3
sessions of conference with us all day; this week 
on Saturday there were still several people who
stuck with us. That's quite a level of commitment.

After Conference, kids decorated Easter eggs with markers and stickers. Elder McWhorter opened a package from home that contained commercial egg dyes, which he used for the activity. In addition to the natural dyes, we had nine more colors!

One little investigator boy decided to
draw Jesus on his egg.

Done by a woman who loves the Bible,
isn't interested in the Book of Mormon,
but watched 2 sessions of Conference.

Taking their eggs home

Finally, Easter Sunday. While we are blessed by the Savior's atonement every day, all year, it is marvelous that there is a day set aside to focus specifically on His atonement and resurrection. The 2 of us worked together, using the scriptures and the Church website, to write the script for our Easter Sacrament meeting. Then the two sisters, the two Elders, and our most recent convert each presented a part (after translating it into Mongolian!), some adding their own thoughts. We sang many of the Easter hymns that are available in the Mongolian hymnbook. It was wonderful and powerful to meet together and remind each other of the sacrifice of our Savior and joy we can have because of Him! 

We are so blessed. Every person on the earth is blessed by His life, His love, and His sacrifice - even if they don't know it or want to acknowledge it. We truly stand all amazed at His love and the support that He offers us!