Mongolia Mission Week 32 - Small efforts matter!

 Mongolia Mission Week 32

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). 

Sometimes we need to be reminded that even though there are just a few of us working together to make a meaningful difference in this part of the world, we can still accomplish more than we think we can. That reminder came as we walked home from the church one day and saw an ant dragging home an insect many times his size. He had a mission, purpose, and confidence. What a wonderful reminder it was to us!

Right after that, a boy on a bicycle rode past. He had to stop and rest because of the hill, so we caught up and asked if we could take a picture of his jacket: "From small beginnings comes great things." (Plus a few random alphabet letters!) Two separate messages of encouragement. We already know that there are great things in store for Sainshand. We have felt it since it arrived in the city. But we keep getting reminded - and we appreciate it.

This is such a different place than the frozen wasteland we found in December. There are many more people (especially children) wandering around, and we can see their faces rather than just the thick scarves everyone wrapped up in back then. Black pants and coats and boots are gone. Many women and girls enjoy wearing dresses. People are showing their toes in sandals. Couples stroll along the sidewalks.

People are out every evening enjoying the wonderful
weather (about 70 degrees). Days are getting into
the high 90s, but evenings are marvelous.

We thought the bouncy houses in the "Family Square"
were for Children's Day. Nope, they reappear evening.

As do the shish kebabs.

And soft ice cream shops!

One Friday there was a birthday celebration for Sainshand. It was a vibrant evening! There were musical groups, programs, a big screen set up to show a movie, and fireworks we could hear as we went to bed.

This looks like a suspicious group walking off into the sunset. Have we told you we really stick out? 

But every time we walk down the street, all the kids playing on the playgrounds and passing us yell out "Hello!" or "Hi!" so they can practice their English. (Assuming that we are English speakers, of course.) Most don't know any other words, but they exuberantly greet us every time they see us.

We have also noticed interesting plantings in the town square area. We can't wait to see what this looks like as it grows and develops. Yet another example of small beginnings of faith and hope. We all know that winter will come back, but that does not stop people from beautifying their grounds and enjoying the summer while it's here.

Around the edge of the playground of our apartment complex, we came home one night to find a tractor and auger drilling yet more holes. These bushes look very much like Korean lilacs. What an effort, especially since these will all need to be watered by hand. Someday this will really look nice.

Every Saturday we have a youth Mutual gathering at the church, open to whomever wants to come. With school being out, though, it feels like the city has emptied. So many of our regular church members or English students have gone - to Ulaanbaatar, to the countryside, to China or Korea, or somewhere. We never know who to expect at these activities or for our Sunday church meetings. And yet we had a nice turnout to play "Minute to Win It" type games on this Saturday. So much fun!

And in news from home, the Forsyth Fire in Southern Utah is on the back side of the mountain from our home. 450 people there (basically the size of the town) were evacuated from their homes and 13 homes were lost to fire. So far, over 10,000 acres have burned, and it is 8% contained. Things are hot, dry, and windy in Southern Utah these days. We're grateful that, so far, New Harmony is safe, and that the Lord's hand is over us all.

This is a historic church in Pine Valley.
Luckily, it was preserved.

 

Our week ended with emotional highs and lows. We had a group of young men walk into church together Sunday morning. Two are Deacons. Two were a couple of Primary-aged member boys we hadn't seen for a while. Two were non-member friends of the group. All six came wearing white shirts. They looked so good!

After sacrament meeting, we decided (like we always must at the last minute) who would teach which second hour class: adults, kids, or a combined group class. We never know who will come to church or what their specific needs will be until it's time to teach. We all show up with broad knowledge of the Come Follow Me lesson and a lot of faith in the Spirit's guidance. This time Kathy taught the young boys while the young missionaries taught 3 investigators who came (no adults members were there), and John set up two adorable little girls with coloring pages. Teaching the youth was an incredibly sweet experience. (Good thing they all had at least some English expertise and that we had one or two who could help translate for the others.) These are all such new members that they didn't even realize what the Doctrine and Covenants is (a special book of scripture that contains revelations pertaining to us today but also features the early history of the Church). 

But when we discussed how the Church began with 6 members, rather like it began in Sainshand, Kathy asked the member boys to explain to the other boys why they got baptized. And those boys who so often act like obnoxious, rowdy teenage boys said things like, "Because I want to be a good person," and "Because I can repent" and "Because it's true!" They were so sincere and obviously remembered with tenderness those feelings they had when they got baptized, those feelings which propel them to church by themselves on Sundays, white shirts or not.

It's such an amazing experience to be involved with the teaching of children of God (of any age) who have so much to learn about basics but know by the Spirit that this is the right place for them to be. And it's inspiring that they have faith enough to accept what we have to offer while they work at developing further understanding. And thanks, Elders (you know who you are!) for your efforts to encourage an understanding of reverence for sacred things. Those efforts are paying off!

On their last Sunday in Mongolia, our mission president and his wife participated in a special farewell fireside. Their two teenage boys performed amazing music and shared their testimonies. They included raw moments about how they struggled to adjust when they moved to Mongolia 3 years ago but are so grateful for their experiences now. It was a powerfully spiritual meeting. We love the Namgurs and will miss them and their vibrant testimonies. They have had a tremendous impact on Mongolia and the people living and serving here! In fact, President Namgur was a major driving force behind the temple announced for this country. The Lords knows what Mongolia needs and when it's needed, and He blesses those who sacrifice to serve Him. 

We gathered and watched the fireside over Zoom.

Mongolia Mission Week 31 - Tires and Transfers or Tired of Transfers

Mongolia Mission Week 31

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 start with tires. We see old tires everywhere, usually painted in cheerful colors. Remember the school projects we wrote about last week? We found out that the colorful tires we see are often the projects school kids do (and a great recycling system).

This tire surrounds a cement block painted
noticeably blue so it will not be run over.

Some tires act as parking lot bumpers or are just random.

Some tires are decorative flower pots.

In front of our apartment building, people planted
seeds that could either be flowers or vegetables.
We'll find out soon.

These were turned into teacups! It's hard to see 

perspective - just know they are tire-sized.

These tires are used to terrace the hill.

The tires that puzzled us the most are the ones "planted" all over the countryside. When we inquired, we found out that when the government gives people land, they must put something permanent on the land within a certain number of years to make sure it remains theirs. So many people will build a "fence" out of tires. Or they will put up a completely wonderful fence around an area that encloses absolutely nothing at this point in time.

We experienced another transfer week - they come around so often! They are always sad for us and exciting but unsettling for the young volunteers. First, some explanation could be helpful for some of you.

We are always amazed at these young people we serve with. Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of the young people between 18 and 26 choose to serve a mission for 18 or 24 months.  They apply, showing their interests, abilities, and willingness to serve wherever in the world they are called through the inspiration of the apostles. And they or their family pay for this opportunity - several hundred dollars each month. They set aside and leave behind jobs, teams, schools, romantic interests, cars, etc. What dedication, commitment, and testimony they demonstrate! They forgo all these things, spend the time and money to serve, and truly dedicate themselves to living a life on a higher level. 

They have the faith to create miracles. They are also incredibly
good sports.

Young Mongolians get called on missions to preach the Gospel. They serve in many parts of the world and in Mongolia as missionaries. But when young missionaries from other parts of the world get called to Mongolia, they come as volunteers to teach English. Proselyting by foreigners isn't allowed, so they serve to grow and enhance the educational opportunities of, and therefore the economy of, Mongolia. Theirs is a much different type of service. No name tags, no knocking on doors, no street contacting. They train at BYU and then teach English in schools, in community centers, and in churches, and the people are very grateful. They also greatly bless the church congregations where they attend and serve and make friends wherever they go. They teach the Gospel to friends who are interested.

None of these young people choose where in the country they will serve or who their companion will be. All of them, whether English teachers or missionaries, are subject to a reassignment of companion or location every 6 weeks. Typically, they get a new companion after 6 weeks and a new city/area after 12 weeks. So change is constant. They get chances to learn and grow in new situations and from new companions; they also get a chance to use their own special talents and gifts all over the country. You've seen in our blog when we have new young people join or leave Sainshand - we've only been here 6 months and have already served with 14 different young servants.

Gainer, Tumenjargal, Jonan, and Eves
practice a song they volunteered to sing for sacrament
meeting. Their investigator is running the electronic piano.

We love them all and appreciate their examples of dedication and commitment. We also feel blessed that we get to choose our companion, stay together the whole time, and stay in one place (unless we get reassigned, which is always a possibility, too). Older members like us get to choose from 6, 12, 18, or 23 months and have more flexibility with putting in preferences for what type of service we want to do and what types of countries we would be willing and able to serve in. We felt called to serve here and have had that feeling confirmed as we received our official call and since we've been here. For some reason, the Lord wants us here!

Back to transfer week. We all found out on Wednesday night that Roman Eves and Sister Tumenjargal were being reassigned and would leave Thursday. The six of us had a final dinner together, and then we sent the four young people off on the train to Ulaanbaatar. 

We often have group members come to see them off.

On Saturday, the group coming back arrived at 7:30 in the morning. Elder Bilegsaikhan and Daisy Hess are our new best friends. They were busy all day their first day here - even though there was a (last minute!) planned power outage that lasted all day and well into the night. We usually take the group to dinner their first day here so that we can get to know each other and talk about the work in the area. Due to lack of power, it ended up being a dinner at our house where we steamed dumplings ("buuz") on a butane camp stove and ate together by the light coming in the window. Elder Jonan remembered how, last time we had a power outage, he and Eves whipped cream for a fruit salad by hand, and he was willing to do it again. After he had been whisking for awhile, he asked if that was enough, and we looked over and saw that it was whipped stiff enough to almost be butter!

As with so many things, it takes losing electricity to help us really appreciate it. We are so blessed by modern conveniences - running water, indoor toilets, electricity, internet . . . When we do without them, it's a gentle reminder of how blessed we really are. We are learning to be more grateful for the things we have, especially family and friends. We get excited when we find things like whipping cream, but that's a minor thing. We eat well (too well!), and are so blessed to have this wonderful experience in a part of the world that is a mystery to most Americans. What we've discovered is that Mongolia is filled with wonderful, kind people. Both the ones who live here and the ones who choose to work their hearts out, serving the Lord in fairly challenging conditions for 18-24 months.  

Speaking of running water - in the past 
we mentioned how rust-colored our 
water can be. To be fair, sometimes it's 
wonderfully clear.

And we're so blessed to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We try not to take that for granted. It's a real reminder of our blessings when we hear people talk about how amazing it is to feel and recognize the truths of the Gospel and the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for them as they discover these feelings for the first time. Or people who long to be able to go to the temple. Many Mongolians want to go to America because they see it as a land of opportunity, but it's truly humbling to see the yearning in our new Elder's eyes when he talks about wanting to go to America because he wants to go there to attend General Conference and see a prophet of God in person.

Mongolia Mission Week 30 - All good things must come to an end....

Mongolia Mission Week 30

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). 

One more Zone Conference picture.
(One of our translation headsets wasn't
working. We got caught sharing a headset!)

The good thing coming to an end is the school year for the public school where we teach. We are, at least for the summer, also through teaching both our class of teachers and our class of students at the medical school. Now we just have our evening English classes at the church and our online class for Mongolian missionaries who want to get into Pathways or BYU Hawaii. So we're looking for new projects and working on new opportunities, like maybe teaching a class for adults and high school seniors who want to pass the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test to prove English proficiency for international schools or jobs.

As the school year ends, interesting things have begun happening. One day lots of holes began appearing in the ground near our apartment. There were two tractors with augers drilling hundreds of holes, and we wondered who was funding what kind of project. Then dozens of teenagers planted trees and bushes in the holes. We've since then seen people watering some of the holes by hand with jugs of water. The public school students do a lot of the day-to-day cleaning at the schools, but we discovered that at the end of the school year, some kids do big projects, like kids who are graduating from one school to the next. 

When the bushes grow, this area will
look very different. 

Another project was happening in front of the school.

Kids (with these adult supervisors) were
painting the chairs and desks blue.

We're sure we'll find good things to do with our summer. When we got home from Zone Conference, we helped with a Seminary party. (During the school year, the older teenage members of our church attend scripture study classes called Seminary.) In Sainshand, these classes are on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Baagii, the church member who teaches Seminary, asked us if we would like to  help with the end of school year party, and we're always up for a party!

We consider most things we make to be an opportunity for Mongolians to share our culture. So we created an "American" style meal. First, some of the kids wanted to learn how to make Jello. Buyan-Erdene, one of the students, had tried it at our house, loved it, and wanted to know how to make it. For that we had bought a package of Jello in an international store in the city. What better way to introduce Mongolians to American culture? Mongolians make what they call "meat jelly" and put meat and vegetables in it. But Americans, of course, make gelatin sweet. For the party, we made a pan of American Jello from the city but also made a batch using fruit juice and some unflavored gelatin we found at a store here - a simple, easy, and healthier version that the kids could do without having an international store. We put canned fruit in each batch and served it with canned whipped cream we had found - "squirt cream." They were both a huge hit!

The other hit was hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and relish (which is really a novel find, also from the city), baked beans, and potato chips (which we find in great abundance here, often in very un-American flavors). We played "Werewolf" (it's like Mafia) and watched an animated movie in Mongolian. 

Playing Werewolf - Elder Eves had to translate for
us so that we could play. We still lost a lot in translation.

Trying American style hot dogs -
Mongolians have various hot-dog looking
sausages, but they don't eat them in buns.

The Jello was a real hit!

Our group of 7 teens and 7 adults

The next day was Children's Day - a national holiday and, it turns out, a VERY big deal. It is always on June 1 and fell on Sunday this year. Leading up to it, all the stores sold prepackaged bags of treats and toys as gifts for children. That day there were parties, gifts, celebrations, bike parades, etc. Luckily, we heard about Children's Day in advance and decided we ought to do something for the children of our church group. We created small treat bags (including pictures of Jesus and a reminder that He loves them every day!). We got permission to move our monthly Fast and Testimony meeting to the following week so we wouldn't be handing out candy on a day we encourage fasting. Some other wards in Mongolia moved Fast day for this celebration, too; Children's Day is a big deal.

An investigator's little sister getting into
the Sunday School lesson and enjoying
her treat bag.

Later that afternoon, we visited several locations in town to check out some of the celebration activities.

There's a very small amusement park in Sainshand.
It was open for Children's Day. We wandered in to 
see what was going on. 

This is what was going on.

Being amusing in the amusement park.

We saw lots of fancy dresses on little girls.

A major town square included bouncy houses,
barbequed shish kebabs, soft ice cream, 
some toys to buy,

pony rides,

small fry locomoting everywhere on roller blades,
bikes, and in other conveyances,

and squirt guns that pulled water up from
underneath this grate.

On quite another day we returned home to a pleasant surprise. Our two young sisters we serve with had "heart attacked" our door. It's so encouraging and uplifting to be thought of. They also "heart attacked" the door of our most recent convert, and it touched her deeply. During Fast and Testimony meeting, she bore her testimony after going around the room showing a picture of her door to everyone. One of the hearts had a scripture on it that was just what she needed that day. Coincidence? Of course not. We know the Lord does His work through other people, and we just have to pay attention to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

On the other side of the world, Shannon and Steven, our awesome basement renters and yard caregivers, sent us a picture of the roses blooming in our yard at home. That was also a pleasant and appreciated surprise that brightened our day. 

We miss our home, family, and friends but are happy that we can communicate with you from afar. This is much easier than when any of our children went on their missions. Now we can email, call, text, and video chat regularly. 

Hearts on doors can spread important messages, but technology is also miraculous and has so much potential for the Lord's work. We have been taught by Elder Bednar, a modern day seer and revelator, that this last dispensation of the fullness of times is distinctive, and one of the reasons for that is the "miraculous progression of innovations, inventions, and technologies that have enabled and accelerated the work of salvation." Speaking in the 2016 Seminar for New Mission Presidents, he said that "all of these advancements are part of the Lord hastening His work in the latter days." Like many tools, it has the potential for good as well as evil, but we consider it to be an absolute blessing and tender mercy for us.