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.