Mongolia Mission Week 43 - News of the week and more news!

 Mongolia Mission Week 43

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). 

You may think that all we do is run around visiting festivals, but one of our big responsibilities here (and the reason we have visas) is teaching English. This is the way the Lord wants His work to proceed in this country: we are here to do good through humanitarian efforts of different sorts.

During the summer, we taught high schoolers at the American Corner, which is sponsored by the American embassy. We continued our conversational English classes at the church and added an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) class for adults and advanced high schoolers who want to take the IELTS proficiency test. It made for long nights at the church (2.5 hours in the evening three nights a week), but we enjoyed meeting some wonderful new friends. Now the American Corner classes and the IELTS classes have ended just in time for our high school and medical school classes to begin. 

The start of school means school uniforms on the streets.

Our IELTS class - a serious group. They're
not really playing on their phones. They
are doing research for a class assignment.

We got home to a nice surprise one night. 
The sisters decorated our door!

For the final p-day (preparation day) before transfers, we invited the young volunteers over for enchiladas (we found green chilies in the capital!!!), churro cheesecake (to keep with the tex-mex theme), and games of Dalmuti and "Poetry for Neanderthals." 

This game involves bopping your opponent
if they use words of more than one syllable.

Elder Jonon sporting our goat horns
we found in the desert.

Daisy Hess was the only one of the three young volunteers to get transferred. Some of her young friends presented her with cute little gifts. 

She accepted gifts with 2 hands, Mongolian style

Sister Rose got a gift, too. A hand-made
bracelet.

A group hug for a good-bye. It's 
so hard to say goodbye!

Several of us met at the train station to see the two
sisters off to the city and give a final farewell.  

Sister Hess was replaced by Lindsey Fish, freshly arrived in Mongolia on Thursday and then in Sainshand on Saturday. Here she is, arriving after flying halfway around the world and taking the train from Ulaanbaatar - ready for a full day of activities on Saturday!

Lindsey Fish arrives - with a brand new pillow.

On Saturday, we had separate Young Men and Young Women activities. The boys had been wanting their own special activity ever since the girls went to Young Women's camp. So we hiked to the top of Wish Mountain (Officially Khan Bayanzurkh Mountain, it's where many Buddhists make special wishes.). We had 8 boys and 4 adults participate on a beautiful but very windy day.

Great views of the Gobi from Wish Mountain.

Buddhists decorate things with colorful scarfs when
they worship.

Found some wildlife, also decorated 
with a colorful scarf.

Stupas are memorials for the dead and can symbolize
the way to enlightenment.

For big celebrations, a very large fire can be built
in the big, decorative copper basket.

On the way back, we built a little fire to make s'mores
- a very new experience for the boys.

Meanwhile, the young women met at our apartment to learn how to make rice crispy treats - and see how many marshmallows they could stuff in their mouths!

Sister Fish, on the right, immediately fits right in.

The cereal also became a way to play a game
that is trending on TikTok.

We ended our Saturday with a welcome dinner for Sister Fish. There's a new restaurant in town called Gobi Nomads. It's very nice and has good food, except they were out of (or not making) pizza, salads, and milkshakes. Not uncommon. But she got to eat a couple of the main Mongolian foods, tsuivan (a noodle dish) and khuushuur (fried meat pies). 

We are so grateful to serve with these young volunteers. They are dedicated to serving God wherever they are called and however they are needed. That includes paying their own way to leave family, friends, school, and interests behind to come to a remote part of the world to teach English. They also get to serve in our local church congregation by helping with youth activities, teaching Sunday School, speaking (a lot! we don't have many members!) in meetings, translating for their poor senior people who don't seem to learn much Mongolian, and wherever else they are needed. Like cleaning the church every week. Everything with a willing smile. They are amazing examples of dedication and selfless service and we love serving with them! They add so much to our lives and this work.

And to end this week's blog - exciting news! Elder Neil L Andersen and his wife will be in Mongolia next week! He is an apostle of Jesus Christ. We will all get to go to the city for a special devotional and mission conference. Check back to learn more about his visit to Mongolia!

Mongolia Mission Week 42 - A land of wonderful and interesting sights

 Mongolia Mission Week 42

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). 

Life in this country has been hard on many people. The median age here is 27. But we love the beauty of the experienced, weathered faces we see. 

Sometimes they are contrasted by a member of the youthful, younger generation.

We've also seen a variety of interesting gates and fences (most very weathered) around the yards of people who do not live in apartment buildings. Gers, outbuildings, and very small houses are in fenced-off areas people own. And people everywhere seem to have a desire to decorate, when they can. Here's a peek of some sights around our town.

Some fences are made of concrete, either formed or in blocks.

Some are made of wood or metal with fancy gates.
These symbols are traditional Mongolian symbols
representing eternity.

Some gates are adorned with metal horses or dogs. 

The Bankhar dog, a livestock herding dog, is the most
common dog in Mongolia. We see them everywhere.

 

We interrupt this discussion about fences
to show this especially large Bankhar dog.
And a couple of  great elders.

This fence, like many, is made of various scraps of
metal, including one that seems to be from a larger
piece of art. Hopefully you can see the child.

This one has painted cartoon characters.

Cars, on the other hand, are relatively decoration-free. We see no bumper stickers or vanity plates, but sometimes we see interesting decals or other adornments. 

We've seen several Jokers.

This decal is sweet.

Toyota?

 

We've also learned the importance of selecting the best color of car - so that the duct tape matches!

Other sights we appreciate - we love the beauty of God's artwork, from His sky scenes to His caterpillars. We absolutely know that this is His earth, and the things on it weren't created by accident or chance. 

The sky is always captivating.

We took this in the mountains.
(We see very few insects in Sainshand -
only flies and little black beetles that
kept coming into our house for a time.)

We see and experience Mongolian hospitality everywhere. It's amazing. We witness it most days in all sorts of different ways: 

• When we go to someone's house or apartment we are always offered something to drink - hot milk or milk tea when it's cold outside, or soda and fruit drinks when it's hot. But we will always be offered a drink and usually some candy or dried curd, even when we were not expected.
• At a church youth activity, the refreshment was some form of rice chip - a rather tasty form of Styrofoam. We had eaten lunch recently and weren't really hungry, so we didn't take plates. Three separate 12-year old girls noticed we didn't have any and came by to offer us some of their treat.
• In fact, kids all the time come into the church munching on something and are constantly offering to share with us, like it's expected.
• We saw a kid at school share a chocolate bar she won with a boy who asked for some, even when it looked to us like she really didn't want to share her prize.
• Two adult women asked to meet with us to talk about options for them learning English. And then apologized that they had not brought a gift.
• We always have someone (usually a teen) offer (rather insistently) to help with bags, luggage, or anything we are carrying. It's obvious they respect their elders. (We're not old - we just look like we are ;)
• Kathy accompanied the sisters on a visit to teach Jimsee, an 8-year old girl who was home alone (not uncommon here). When they got there, Jimsee was mixing yogurt into a bowl of apples she had just chopped. She carefully put three spoons in the bowl and handed it to them to share (shared dishes are common).

A special treat from a tiny hostess

Jimsee's aunt dropped by after the lesson.

We so enjoy interacting with the people of this country. And people watching! We leave you with the amazing sight of a teenage boy (on the right) walking across the desert in roller blades. Sorry it's blurry! 

And a boy on a bike pulling a little person on a tiny bike with a long rope.

The house on the left looks like an American style
house, which is extremely unusual here.