Mongolia Mission Weeks 56 & 57 - Dating in Mongolia!

Mongolia Mission Weeks 56 & 57

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). 

In a recent online meeting with the senior couples serving in Mongolia, President Kunz admonished us all to go on dates with our spouses. He suggested we go to dinner, see a movie, etc. As many of you know, consistent date nights have been extremely important to us throughout our marriage, but we find that we've had to be fairly creative in Mongolia - or at least in Sainshand. There aren't that many restaurants, and we have only one movie theater. And so far, the selections there have been horror, anime, or Mongolian language only movies. 

But we grabbed the chance when "Now You See Me, Now You Don't" appeared in English with Mongolian subtitles. It only showed at 3:00 pm, so it was "date daytime" instead of "date night," but it worked on our P-day. We got to the theater and worked through the ticket purchase process. Turns out there is a 5 ticket minimum, so we bought 5 tickets and attended with 3 invisible friends (for the same amount we would pay for 2 tickets in the US). We had the place to ourselves. A private screening. And it was rather fun. 

It's December! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched our annual "Light the World" campaign where the goal is to spread the light of Jesus Christ during the month of His birth. In Mongolia, there is an advent poster with 25 stickers that you place on the poster for each day from December 1 until December 25.

Each day we are to do a different loving task,
like smiling or holding the door for someone
or taking out the trash.

We pulled out the little tree we saved from last year and found a star for the top. It looks good next to our nativity and even has gifts around it that we have received from children who creatively got a package to us.

Our Family Home Evening the first week of the month was a project of making Christmas ornaments out of cardboard, yarn, and stickers. Members and nonmembers of our church got very involved, had a good time, and the ornaments turned out great!

Then, on Saturday, our youth activity was to make a wreath - again out of cardboard and yarn, this time turning the yarn into little pompoms that were glued onto the cardboard. Both these and the trees were ideas found and shared by our youth. 

There was some Christmas music in the background. One of the songs had a beat that we just couldn't ignore dancing to....

For our next activity day, the youth decorated the tree, finished lanterns and snowflakes to hang from the ceiling in the hallway, and created treat bags to deliver to a few families. So much energy, excitement, and creativity! And the tree looks pretty good.

We had two fun reactions from some of our teens that day. The first was a young woman biting into a chocolate crinkle cookie for the first time. Dusted with powdered sugar, it looked suspicious to her. But when she took a bite, her face lit up! She loved it. 

The second reaction was when another girl was eating a brownie. John came by and added a dollop of the whipped cream he was experimenting with (it's 69 percent cream and 30 percent vegetable oil - about half the price of cream and much easier to find.) Another suspicious look, then a lick of the cream. And, again, a precious response of delight. We may be corrupting the youth here with our sugary food substances! No picture of either of these girls - the reactions were too spontaneous.

Meanwhile, at school, a few weeks ago we assigned our 12th grade class to take a simple scenario and develop a story and script from it. We had teams of 4-5 students of varying English abilities. Each member of the team needed a speaking part - everything in English, of course. They presented creative stories, each about 4-5 minutes long. And their feedback at the end was that we should use this again in a future class, so we think they felt good about what they accomplished. Or they enjoyed laughing at each other's skits.

Our two elders have been teaching a self-reliance course on the importance of education at our local Polytechnic College. It's been a good experience for both the teachers and their students. Their first class just completed the course and received certificates and gift bags. This course is another example of the work Deseret International Charities is doing to improve lives and will soon be offered in other areas.

Us with the teachers and one of the students who
completed the class.

We also had some friends come to dinner. Alice, a good friend, is an English teacher at the school where we teach. Her 6 year-old daughter (named Michelle, after Michelle Obama) speaks fluent English and put our other guests, the English volunteer teachers, to work with a drawing competition. 

We had a lasagna (pretty American, right?) 
dinner followed by what turned out to be
a deep dish cheesecake.

Every month, we hold a planning meeting for activities that will be held at the church. These have become a valuable resource as we work to model the value and results of revelatory councils.

John and Elder Paul captured using both a white
board and computer/TV display for planning.

Finally, we'll share a picture of some drawings from home. It's great to receive hand decorated pictures from grandchildren! These pictures were given from the heart. 

We suspect Michelle and Darren gave blood recently,
due to all the American Red Cross stickers used by 
their boys.

We're hoping that, because of our activities and encouragement, the people here find December to be a special time of thoughtfulness. We also hope we've spread the news that Christmas is about Christ's birth and not just a celebration of lights and parties welcoming a new year. He condescended to come to earth to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He strengthens us to bear our burdens, if we draw close to Him. We should all sing "Joy to the World!"