Mongolia Mission Week 54 - Come to Mongolia! and Thanksgiving Round 1

 Mongolia Mission Week 54

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). 

It's time that we invite you to come to Mongolia. Yes, you are all invited to come visit us and see this amazing land and people. But, more specifically, we are inviting senior couples to come experience serving in Mongolia.  (You don't even have to eat camel if you don't want to! We tend to make our experience more adventurous than is required.) We are so glad we are here - surely to be a once in our lifetime experience - and there is so much need for more help! 

If you are at a stage in your life and have the ability to donate your time and talents in this way, check out the many opportunities for this and other places to serve (some closer to home but still so much in need) at: https://seniormissionary.churchofjesuschrist.org/ . When you prayerfully choose to serve, you will see the Lord's hand in where you are called and what happens once you begin serving. You will find your own special gifts put to good use for His children, and you will realize why you have been given those gifts. 

Throwing parties seems to be one of our gifts. Since we're all about parties, and education, and since Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in Mongolia, we decided we needed double celebrations. We'll tell you about Week 2 next week. For our Family Home Evening at church, we taught people about Thanksgiving. After pondering how to best do that with limited resources - and people! - we first pulled together a presentation about  the history of this holiday. It included a discussion of things Americans commonly do on Thanksgiving (eat, watch a parade, watch football, play games, watch the dog show, etc.), and what foods we eat. The elders (the personal translation service we have at our beck and call) translated our presentation and presented it in Mongolian. 

Over 30 people attended! We had three different activities:  

One was for everyone to write something they are
thankful for on a leaf. The leaves decorated a tree 
drawn on our versatile and ever useful whiteboard.

People created turkeys by drawing
around their hands - isn't that
an important American tradition? 

We taught them how to fold a triangle 
paper football and play table-top football with it.

We made sample plates of turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream. No one we asked had ever tried any of these things before. The sisters made cranberry juice with Sprite, a holiday tradition in Sister Veile's family. Most of the foods got mixed reviews. Pumpkin pie was about 50/50, much like in America. We think the whipped cream was the hit, with a 93.8% approval rating! (Our statistics may or may not be accurate, but we keep finding Mongolians who want to eat as much straight whipped cream as they can.)

We found turkey in the capital, imported
from France.

Stuffing seasoned with poultry seasoning
Michelle sent from the US and sage we picked
 and dried after a little hike we took once.

We searched for weeks for pie pans but
settled for rectangular pies.

Whew! On to the next activity! It was time to take this group of Sainshand volunteers (before someone gets transferred) to Khamariin Khiid, the famous monastery and energy center about 40 miles outside of Sainshand. We always have a unique and enjoyable time there. 

Especially when we find camels grazing around.

They're looking majestic right now with their fluffy winter coats.

Elder Anand in the back, with us, Sister Fish, Sister
Veile, and Elder Paul.

This is the prescribed way to absorb energy.

We visited the shallow caves where monks have
meditated and also hidden from communists
when they were purging the country of religion.

This time we also stopped at "Wish Mountain," where one goes to offer tribute and ask for blessings. We were greeted in the parking lot by a very friendly saiga (we think) - an antelope type animal with a white heart shape on its back end. It was so tame we think people have been feeding it.

Elder Rose was just trying to pet it.

And some even friendlier domestic goats.

Women are only allowed to go halfway up
the mountain.

Men can go to the top and carry offerings on
behalf of their families.

Wish Mountain offers a panoramic view of a
small portion of the Gobi.

We finished at sunset.

We are so grateful for the privilege of being here. We enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday for the special focus on remembering God and thanking Him for our many blessings. And the food! It's usually an opportunity for us to spend some time with family. We miss that this year but are especially grateful for technology that helps us stay connected. We hope you each will reflect upon your blessings and express your gratitude to God, from whom all blessings flow.