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.