Mongolia Mission Weeks 48 & 49

 Mongolia Mission Weeks 48 & 49

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 get two weeks for the price of one again! More happened the second week than the first, so we'll start there. And it was extra special. 

We've told you that every six weeks we have a Zone Conference, where all of us serving in our section of Mongolia come together for instruction and edification. There are four zones:  East, West, Central, and Erdenet. Actually, after this week there will be five zones, with the addition of a North zone.  Then, two weeks later we generally have transfers, where many of the young volunteers get new assignments Anyway, because an apostle visited last month and because a member of the Asia North Area Presidency was doing a mission tour this month, we ended up with Mission tour/Zone meetings this week AND transfers.

So we drove to the city on a Sunday afternoon, spent Monday attending online meetings, getting our car serviced at the dealership and shopping for items we can't get in Sainshand (like turkeys - stay tuned for Thanksgiving!). We got to go to dinner with our dear friends, the Rottweilers, Area Communication Specialists. They are about to leave and spend six months in Palau, so we won't be having dinner together again they get back in the spring.

Tuesday was our conference, with the East and West Zones combined. We received wonderful instruction and guidance from President and Sister Kunz and Elder and Sister Kim. Elder Kim is a counselor in the area presidency. Each area of the church has general authorities who oversee and support church activities. There was a special spirit we felt from Elder Kim, and we each felt personal revelation and insights during the various messages of the conference. 

We spent some time the prior week doing online apartment inspections (One of our jobs is peering at people's toilet bowls through phones!) and, as usual, gave awards during zone conference for the cleanest and tidiest apartment keepers. It's actually hard to narrow down who gets those awards! 

Here's a fun picture of Jay. He's one of our favorite people and indispensable to the mission. On this day his role was photographer as well as translator and a variety of behind the scenes jobs like lunch-getter. We couldn't resist getting a picture of him trying to organize 60 to 70 eager-to-catch-up young people and 6 of us "more mature" ones, as Elder Kim liked to call us.

Sister Kim with the three senior couples
in our two zones.  

We and our Mongolian members were pleased to hear that Dallin H. Oaks was set apart as the new president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the great blessings of our church is having priesthood authority and a solid succession plan. There is no campaigning. It's in God's hands; through revelation prophets are selected years in advance as members of the Quorum of the 12 apostles. We sustain them all as prophets, seers, and revelators, and the most senior one is the president of the church. 

It's no small thing to lead a worldwide church, but we love President Oaks. We look forward to seeing how the Lord works through him and know the church is in good hands.

President Oaks with his counselors, Elder
Eyring and Elder Christofferson

Batmunkh arranged to have our winter tires installed on our car while we were in the capital. He's another friend we couldn't survive without!  The tire folks came to the mission home parking lot and did the change of tires. 

That was much handier than our weaving through
traffic on circuitous roads for the car servicing.

In the transfers we lost (but will always love) Sister Gainer and Elder Jonon. Then we bustled back to the more reasonable streets of Sainshand. In Ulaanbaatar the city temperatures hovered around freezing, and when we got back to Sainshand, our lovely fall temperatures seemed to be gone, too. We woke up the next morning to snow. In fact, it snowed a bit every morning for 3 days. It was never more than an inch, and pretty much melted by the end of each day, but seems a promise of things to come. 

We enjoyed watching these kids have a snowball
fight. It's fairly unusual to have snow in Sainshand.

We have new volunteers: Elder Paul and Sister Veile.
 She moved from the far west to the far east of Mongolia. 

Before going to the city, because transfers were coming, the six of us serving in Sainshand made a trip to Khamariin Khiid. That's the local monastery, energy center, and tourist attraction we visit fairly often, as the missionaries serving here want to see the most important site of the area while they are here.

On this day we saw more tourists and 
worshippers at the various buildings than
we ever have. 

A first for us: we saw a "nun" on this trip, the female
version of a monk. Monks read special scriptures to
applicants who pay for the service.

A monk finds quiet time to chant and meditate.

Elder Jonon practices levitation!

This monastery visitor is Davaadalai, a singer 
who won the 2023 Voice Mongolia contest.

Davaadalai on YouTube.

We're continually delighted with traditions we find out about that are different from the ones on our side of the world. After seeing teachers perform in the talent show we blogged about last week, we found out about student talent shows local schools put on in the fall. We went to several hours of one. Each class, or representatives of each class, competed in different categories of musical and dance numbers. Some numbers were modern; some were traditional (they received more points if they included traditional numbers). 

Everyone in each class participated in what they called a "flash mob" dance, where they all learn a line dance and perform it together. It was impressive to watch these serious teenage competitors, boys and girls, singing and dancing their hearts out whether it was their favorite extra-curricular activity or not. 

Uuriingegee, from our church group, narrates this
story/song about Chinggis Khan.

Ogy, also from our group,  was part of
this number. 

Some numbers were modern. Some were in English.

These students created a mural of Mongolian
script as part of their song/story

The seniors get fairly emotional after their parts because they know they will be graduating in the spring, so this will be their last performance. Click here to see photos and videos from both the student and the teachers' talent shows. (A particularly interesting one is teachers doing a long, traditional dance with bowls of milk on their heads.) The teachers' performances were often more polished than those of the students, but considering the school talent show was pretty much required of all students, it's pretty impressive.

Meanwhile, back in Utah, our Sensation  

Box Elder tree is sensational!

Maddie, Trevor, and Ember help Grandpa (Kathy's dad) sell apples.

We really missed being part of the apple picking and selling this year. Dad's orchard had lots of apples. Luckily some of his kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren came to town to help pick. And a few helped with selling them at the New Harmony Apple Festival, which was held in the street this year instead of the park due to all the rain. 

The day before the festival, New Harmony received over 5 inches of rain that came in with such force there was no containing it. Rivers of water broke through basement windows. Several basements, including that of our neighbors (who finished building their house and left for a mission just after we did), got flooded. It was heartbreaking. Our house survived without damage, we've been told.

Never a dull moment, indeed. Thanks for following our blog. We appreciate all the love, support, and prayers we receive from you!