Mongolia Mission Week 64 - We Have Seen the Nethers

Mongolia Mission Week 64

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). 

Our week included seeing the nethermost part of Mongolia. To many Americans, Mongolia is very far away, remote, and unknown. Most of us don't learn much about Mongolia in school - if anything, maybe a little bit about Chinggis Khan (it's Genghis Khan in our books, but the Mongolians pronounce it with a Ch and don't pronounce the K). So, Mongolia itself seems pretty remote, and our home base of Sainshand is a remote part of Mongolia. But on Tuesday this week, we took a drive to Ulaanbadrakh, which is an even more remote part of our province. 

There was some road congestion along the way.

Speed along this section of road is monitored by the locals.

It was a trip to meet our investigator's mom. If someone under the age of 18 wants to be baptized a member of our church, they need not only parental permission to take lessons about the church, but also the written consent of a parent just before they are baptized. Many youth from rural parts of Mongolia go to a city for school and stay with relatives or in a dormitory during the school year. We have a 15-year old student living in a dormitory who wants to join our church. His mother lives in Ulaanbadrakh, so we needed to take a drive to get her signature on the baptism consent form.

To get there, we drove to the local famous monastery, Khamariin Khiid, 26 miles (45 minutes) away and then turned south to follow dirt or gravel roads/paths for 55 miles (another 2 hours). We felt like we were in the nethermost part of the vineyard (see Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon). 

The gate for Ulaanbadrakh is very impressive.
We were impressed that we actually found the town.

The elders with Uilstuguldur's mom in front of her home.
The tire acts as a weight for the roof of the ger.

Her next door neighbor was burning the hair off a
slaughtered animal with a blow torch.

These are typical furnishings in a ger. We are always
impressed at the way people beautify their living spaces.

The stove in the middle of the ger heats the place nicely. They had to prop
the door open to let some cool air in.

Uilstuguldur's mom was very gracious and fed us (meat and noodle soup), which is a common and a lovely example of Mongolian hospitality.

The rest of the week was pretty eventful, too. We started teaching at the 3rd school again on Monday and Wednesday after the long New Year holiday. It was great to see some of our students again, but we also have some new classes this semester. We were told more students need the opportunity to have us in their classrooms. We're the native English speakers everyone wants a chance to hear. We come by it naturally-

But life in the nethers is full of surprises. Sometimes we go to class and find the teacher teaching Russian that day ("Come back later, please!"). Sometimes they rotate classrooms we teach in. Often students come looking for us when we don't know where to go. 

Tuesday was another surprise - our worst apartment water of the whole time we've been here. 

It's a good thing we have water filters for drinking and cooking.

We, of course, celebrated National Blueberry Pancake Day when the zone leaders came in on the 7:30 am train on Thursday. Sometimes wild blueberries and/or frozen blueberries are available here in the stores. It was great to have Elder Higginbotham back for a day! 

On Friday, we judged the speaking portion of an English Marathon our school hosted for 8 twelfth grade classes from the area. We enjoyed spending time with these students who are working so hard to learn English. There were some very good talks given - when their name was called they drew a topic, had one minute to prepare, and got 2 minutes to speak.

The students took individual written tests. They also participated in 
group activities including Kahoot, a game where they had to answer
online questions on their phones. 

Representatives from the winning schools pose with us and Elders Anand and Paul.

But the biggest event of the week was the Dornogobi (our province) camel festival, which ran for two days. Each soum (small town) sets up an official receiving ger for guests and brings their best camels and riders from their area's individual competitions (races, polo matches, best dressed couple, etc.) Saturday was our p-day for the 6 of us this week so we could attend. We saw so many camels, so many people wearing traditional dress, so much music and pageantry. And it wasn't as cold as last year's - temps were only in the teens instead of below 0 degrees Fahrenheit!

We saw Amgaa, who belongs to our church and is the mayor
of Saikhandulaan, in that soum's official ger. The pictures
are famous camel trainers from the soum.

We ate a delicious soup in the ger of the Dornogobi province. Notice the
artfully placed fruits, candies, and sliced cucumbers and hams. The lattice
is the portable framework that holds up a ger.

John loves the white camels and is
trying to figure out how to bring one 
back to New Harmony.

This camel's reaction to John's idea! 
But it has curlers in its hair - cockleburs.

One of the performers, who sang
while riding around the arena.

A goal of the festival was to set a Guinness world record for the number of female camel riders in a single event. Each participating woman had a special purple badge on a lanyard.

There were 350 women riders.

Good seating next to the staging area before the camels
paraded in for the opening ceremony.

The cutest and youngest camel riders we saw!

Khandmaa, one of our church members (with an orange belt), was a dancer.

If you want yet more of the camel festival, there are other photos and some videos here: 

2026 Camel Festival

We left the festival about 3 pm for a family history fair at our church. Five women from Ulaanbaatar came to Sainshand to provide information about the importance of family history and tools that are available to assist people with their genealogy and recording family stories.

We had several computers for attendees to use;
some used an app on their phone. 

Our week ended with another powerful Sunday. Our members fast for two meals once a month on the first Sunday of the month, then donate the money to provide food, shelter, clothing, medicine, etc. to those in need. On Fast Sunday our church meeting consists of people spontaneously sharing testimonies of the gospel. Besides the blessing of donating to help others, we find that fasting builds us personally, both spiritually and physically. Our testimonies strengthen as we ponder them and as we hear other testimonies. We always individually pick someone or something special to fast for, which adds special power to our prayers. A highlight of our meeting was a non-member who shared a beautiful testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our Sunday ended with a fireside broadcast to kick off a For the Strength of the Youth (FSY) conference that will be held in Mongolia in June. This is a week long conference for youth 14-18 years old, filled with lessons, classes, and activities that build social skills, spiritual knowledge, and closeness with God. The youth who have attended in the past really love the experience! Our little group in Sainshand could have 10 or 11 participants that attend.

We ended the week feeling not just tired but blessed beyond measure for all that we experienced, accomplished, and for the miracles! It's a good tired. The Lord is very aware of the nethermost parts of His vineyard.