Mongolia Mission Week 37 - How Green is the Gobi!

 Mongolia Mission Week 37

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). 

Temps have been hovering in the 90s these days. People carry umbrellas (not in the rain, but when it's sunny), and we've seen some creative ways of keeping motorcycle seats cool in the sun.

Flannel bling covering with cartoon characters

One motorcycle we saw was even covered in crocheted granny squares! Then there's this one with brightly colored fringes:

A ride like this just has fringe for fun.

We mentioned enough about the cold last winter to convince you all that we live in a frozen wasteland. But it's time to share some things we are learning about the Gobi (it's not called "Gobi Desert" because the word Gobi already incorporates desert into its name). You probably already know that it is the one of the largest deserts in the world - 500,000 square miles or about twice the size of Texas - but did you know it's green? During the summer? 

The Gobi seems to go on forever. And we only see
a small portion of it.

We were amazed recently when we noticed from
town how green the desert was becoming.

The Gobi where we are is not really a sand dune type desert. It's more just gritty dirt. (Fun to keep off the church floors!) When we arrived in late November it was barren and brown with very little precipitation, but in the hottest months of the year we actually get some rain, maybe once a week. And the desert weeds and grasses respond. 

When it does rain, you can see it does a decent job of
filling the low spots.

Around the apartments, we are beginning to see what emerged from the seeds people planted a few weeks ago. We have rows of grass. We also have tire planters with hardy plants like hollyhocks, cosmos, and marigolds. It's inspiring how much people work to beautify the area, even for only a few months.

We are also lacking in mosquitos here. (That's not a bad thing!) We hear tales of swarms of mosquitos of terrific size in wetter parts of Mongolia. Once again, we are grateful to be assigned to Sainshand. 

This week on our preparation day (p-day), the six of us assigned to Sainshand went for a picnic. We heard there was a lake near "the 13th windmill." Our group wants to have a cookout there (more on that in a couple of weeks!) We wanted to check out the location. But finding a way to the windmill was an off-roading adventure all on its own. First we tried one road/trail. It was pretty sketchy. We almost got stuck in the sand. And it was across the fence (there was a fence!! we don't see those often) and the railroad tracks from the windmills. We tried again. Found a road that goes past a huge solar farm along with windmills and government warning signs not to use it. But there were several other dirt car trails, so we chose one of those and went searching for windmill #13. 

We found goats and sheep along the way. They were complaining about the heat and using any shade they could find for relief.

We saw a nomadic family with their horses.
Maybe it was their goats and sheep we saw.

Finally, we found windmill number 13.
But no lake in sight!

So we set up our picnic, got baked in the sun, played Frisbee until we roasted, then packed up and drove back to the air-conditioned church to play a Chinese dominoes game until nearly 6 pm. That's when p-day ends and we get back to work. It was a great day of exploration and fun. 

The two of us won the dominos game,
which surprised the young people.

We are impressed by the amount of sustainable energy that is generated here. There is quite the solar farm just outside the city right next to the row of windmills. We don't know how far they extend. But it's nice to see that much of our energy here comes from these sources instead of burning coal. Most gers have a solar panel outside for electricity, too.

Even more fun is seeing the traditional nomad 
family gers in the view just beyond solar panels -
truly the old and the new.

We said goodbye this week to our fun Elder Bilegsaikhan. This was an unusual transfer; he's the only one who left us. He's only been here six weeks. This time the two that have been here 12 weeks both stayed. It's a reminder to us that God is in charge and has a plan not only for His work here, but for each of us. We know that He knows what is best for us. We may not always have the experiences in life we want to have, but we have the ones that will help us grow and become who we need to become. But we have to be meek enough to realize that He is in charge, and we have to follow His promptings and commandments. Otherwise, we often create self-inflicted challenges and hardships.

Goodbye dinner

And now we are welcoming Elder Colton Johnson, who has been in the country for six weeks. He's adjusting and learning the language so well. We are excited to get to serve with him and get to know him. Little does he know what hanging out with the likes of us will really be like!

Hello dinner

One of our exciting events from this week was a care package from John's niece and her husband. They sent such a variety of fun things.

One final fun fact. Rice Krispy treats are not known here, but in our quest to introduce people to all the best cuisine America has to offer, when we found some chocolate crispy rice cereal, we made Rice Krispy treats for a youth activity. We usually can't find that kind cereal at all. The other day the deacons asked for marshmallow cake for their activity. It took a while, but we figured it out. It does look like a cake before you cut it into squares.

Next week is going to be amazing here! We hope yours is too!

Mongolia Mission Week 36 - We're sorry, Mongolia is closed...

Mongolia Mission Week 36

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). 

Well, it seems Mongolia is closed. Last week was a holiday week due to Naadam in the capitol, maybe extending into the first part of this week. But on Thursday in Sainshand we were out looking for office supplies, vegetables, fruit, etc. Every place we went seemed to be closed. Even places that were open did not have very much or very fresh produce; we wondered if their suppliers were closed. Attendance at classes and at church was sparse. Everyone seems to be vacationing.

However, we still found ways to party.

Earlier in the week, Elder and Sister Saunders, our Area Medical Advisor (AMA) couple, came to Sainshand. They cover the Asian North Area, which includes Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, and Guam/Micronesia. They have a big job providing advice for medical issues. They came to Sainshand to see what medical services exist in case missionaries or English volunteers need them (gulp!). If one of us needs medical attention, the AMA decides where they should go for treatment - to a local place, to the capital by car or ambulance (no options to fly), or to another country. The Saunders checked out a local clinic, a couple of pharmacies, and our hospital.  Their next stop was Khovd, at the far western end of Mongolia, for similar visits. We're glad that they (and we) know what medical care is available and what the standards are.

We had fun showing Saunderses around for a couple of days. Of course we took them and Jay, our friend from the mission office (their driver/translator), out to the famous energy center/monastery. We've shown pictures of Khamariin Khiid in prior posts, but there are always more to share. One of the buildings is in the middle of a renovation, but the door was unlocked and no one stopped us when we wandered in.  Everything was dusty or in disarray, but it was fun to see the banners, carvings, and artifacts.

So many things we wish we understood better,
like the symbolism and significance in this art.

Our tour group of the Saunders, Jay, and us.

Now inside the cave where Dulduityn Danzanravjaa 
studied and meditated. He founded the monastery here 
and is a highly respected pioneer of the area and arts.

A small world story: Elder Saunders' grandfather, Clarence Saunders, was John's bishop in the tiny town of Vale, Oregon when John was a child. And Sister Saunders' cousin, Mark Searle, and his wife provided our Member Leader Support training before we came to Mongolia. 

Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the acronym MTC is widely recognized as referring to a Missionary Training Center. There are 80,000 missionaries throughout the world and all go to one of the MTCs located somewhere in the world. There isn't one in Mongolia, but there is an MTC Resort on the way out to the monastery, so we found that humorous. 

And some camels posing for us - our
best "up close" experience along the road.

This week our church group held our first Family Home Evening FHE) since our arrival at the beginning of December. Families and family relationships are a key priority within our church. These are the people we were sent to earth to support and protect, and in these trying times we need to intentionally work to strengthen those relationships. Our prophets have counseled families to set aside one night a week for an evening together with a gospel lesson, an activity, and a treat. Strong families make strong communities and strong countries. We've appreciated the feelings we've developed within our own family as we've bonded together over the years through FHE and similar activities. Some activities have been more successful than others, and sometimes relationships go through growing and stretching patches (hey, we're all mortal), but we've always clung to the promise of prophets that the cumulative effect of the efforts will pay off. And they have.

But we live in a place where most people are the only members in their families, so we've decided that twice a month we will hold FHE as a church family, knowing the benefits will spill out into their own families. Invitations were shared with both members and friends, and we didn't really know what to expect. But we had 21 attend our first attempt. It was a great night.

It took 3 people plus one eating a sucker to start
and stop the music for "musical chairs."

Another day we were at the church and experienced a sudden and terrific thunderstorm like we've never seen here before. The clouds gathered so quickly, then lightening, thunder, torrents of rain, and the streets turned into rivers. After about 15 minutes, all went back to normal except for some drizzles coming in through the tops of the church windows, which are not used to precipitation from that direction.

This is a normally dry creek bed that
runs through the city!

A couple of boys interrupted their basketball
game in the rain to make "water angels" 
in the puddles on the court. Rain is novel!

Last week we mentioned we started an IELTS class. We didn't know what to expect with all the travel and holiday-taking that happens during the summer. We set the class up for 90 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after our regular church conversational English classes, and we structured it in such a way that people can miss some classes without getting totally lost. Now we've had about 6 classes, and it keeps gaining momentum - every one has new students. This week we had 6 new students, all wonderful people we didn't know before and with whom we have made a great connection!! It is so much fun working with adults and older students who already know quite a bit of English and are very motivated to learn more!

Even though we have a car, we often walk places or take a walk when we get home from teaching. Turns out, sandbur stickers are a menace here, too, just like at home!

On our way home from church we sometimes walk through a mostly concrete park filled with trees, a fountain, and  some exercise equipment. It's colorfully lighted at night.

Soft ice cream is a really big deal here. There are so many vendor huts that appeared for the summer and are open every night as people emerge to enjoy the moderate temperatures of dusk. One night we passed a bench of teens all enjoying an ice cream cone. Fruit flavors are common. The white ice cream is called "milk flavor," which is a true description. We don't think they use vanilla, which isn't found in stores except those that specialize in imports for foreigners. When we find vanilla extract in the city, a 16 ounce bottle is about $20.

And for your other food reports for the week, we made skillet popcorn for the Young Men and Young Women movie activity. It took a lot of popcorn for 20 of us! It's a lot more work than making brownies!

We also tried making a goat pot roast. It turned out delicious, even if the picture is overshadowed by the homemade bread loaves, which we prefer to purchased bread.

There are so many good things happening. We got to meet our Medical Advisors and form new friendships. We had an amazing first Family Home Evening. Our IELTS class keeps growing. We also spent a lot of time working to get local young women enrolled to attend the first Young Women's Camp to be held by our church in Mongolia. It looks like our little group in Sainshand will have 6-8 young women attend. So much good is happening, even though Mongolia seems to be closed for the holiday!

Mongolia Mission Week 35 - The biggest festival of Mongolia - Naadam

 Mongolia Mission Week 35

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). 

For this week, we drove to Ulaambaatar on Monday, had Zone Conference with our new mission president on Tuesday, then stayed in the city and went with two other American senior couples to the Naadam opening ceremonies in the Central Stadium. It was such a celebration! So much going on all at the same time for two hours!

This large stadium is set among new apartment
buildings. The city is truly a mix of old and new.

There is really no way to adequately describe our experience. Naadam is the biggest holiday/festival of the year in Mongolia. It's a celebration of several different things: the establishment of the first statehood of Mongolia, the anniversary of the Great Mongol Empire, the anniversary of restoration of national independence, and the anniversary of the People's Revolution. Naadaam celebrates the "three manly sports" - archery, horse racing, and wrestling. The traditional food for the holiday is khuushuur - fried, hand-held meat pies. Naadam gets celebrated on different days in different towns and provinces of the country, but the official opening is in the capitol city.

This was our ticket to the festivities.
It describes what we were celebrating.

The first organized statehood of Mongolia was the Xiongnu Empire in 209 BC, as you can see on our ticket. Then 819 years ago was the formation of the Mongol Empire by Chinggis Khan in 1206. It's also been 114 years since Mongolia's independence from China's Qing dynasty and 104 years since the Russian Red army defeated the White army, creating the Mongolian People's Republic in 1921. So they celebrate all of the above in this one festival. The first truly democratic elections were held in July, 1990, but that doesn't seem to be part of Naadam celebrations. That evidently is part of a smaller celebration of Democracy and Human Rights Day in December.

We enjoyed the pageantry of the opening ceremony.

The "Nine White Banners" were brought out and carried
by riders on white horses before being placed in the
stadium. Round banners with horse hair.

Streets were lined with vendors.(The
white tents in the background.)

The riders paused before entering the stadium.

There was a rotating stage in the background.

The track was a nice place for horse
demonstrations, including fast riders
who shot arrows at a target while riding.

Patriotic fireworks

The program began with a parade of people riding horses, the setting up of the banners, a speech by a very important person (maybe the President? We're not sure), and the singing of the national anthem. Following that, we listened to singers, saw different kinds and ages of dancers and contortionists, and watched trick horse riding. There were multiple stages with a variety of performances happening at the same time. Pretty awesome!

Outside the stadium were seemingly hundreds of tents selling goods and food, mostly khuushuur.  Khuushuur are usually half-moon shaped, folded over on one side with a seam along the arc side. For Naadam they are flat like a pancake. (We bypassed several vendors whom we thought were selling only flat bread - then we realized that Naadaam khuushuur is flat!) A dough circle is made, chopped meat and onions are encased in it (basically a ball of dough filled with meat); then it is rolled out flat and fried. We stood in line for a very long time to get a few for lunch. When the ceremonies finish at 1:00, everyone is hungry and heads to the vendors! But it was worth the wait.

Then we went back in to watch some of the wrestling, with many matches going on simultaneously. We were told that anyone who wants to participate can go on the field and find an opponent. Certain strategic positioning happens, however, between the most important competitors. Wrestling was  traditionally used as a way to train warriors and demonstrate prowess, and the wrestling uniforms have many layers of symbolism if not much fabric. Lore has it that the uniforms accentuate the bare chests of the wrestlers because there once was a girl who beat all of the male wrestlers, so the uniform now leaves no room for doubt.

The match is lost when someone touches the ground with anything other than hands or feet. So when you watch the sport, you see lots of men standing fairly still while they push against each other's shoulders or arms. 

Most of the people in boot-length clothes are coaches
who hold their wrestlers' hats and offer encouragement.

Also outside, we saw many of the American teachers and some of the Mongolian missionaries. Several ended up being interviewed and shown on local news casts. We got interviewed, briefly, but don't know if the footage was ever used. The point was that Mongolians appreciate foreigners wearing their traditional clothing and participating in their culture. They were excited to see us at least trying to fit in.

The horse racing venue is at another location 30 km to the west of Ulaanbaatar, and we needed to head east to get home, so we didn't see that. The archery took place in a nearby stadium, but we didn't know about it at the time. We were told by Mongolians that it's pretty boring to watch anyway. But we had a great time experiencing as much as we did and look forward to seeing what Naadaam is like in our area.

For more pictures and videos of what we saw, check the Google photos link: Naadam photos

As mentioned above, we were in the city for Zone Conference. It was the first with our new mission president, President Kunz, and his family. It was a wonderful, spiritual meeting. President Kunz, Sister Kunz, the Assistants to the President, our Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders provided wonderful training and a spiritual lift. As with all callings in the Church, each leader is called with divine timing for special purposes. President Namgur and his family accomplished miracles while here. Now it is President Kunz's time, and his impact is already evident. He's been here two weeks and landed on his feet, already working and leading the mission - and hasn't stopped since. It's amazing to see how smoothly transitions can work. But President Kunz says it's like boarding a moving train.

The Kunz family. They had 4 zone conferences this week!

Even though our leaders are only mortal, and even though President Kunz may (gasp!) have some failings (which we haven't found), the Spirit has borne witness to us multiple times in our lives that in spite of failings by mortal leaders, the Lord's work goes on and He blesses our lives anyway. His work goes on within His timetable and in His way. In spite of, and sometimes because of, weaknesses. In fact, we have both had leadership callings and have been very grateful for that principle and grateful to people who have shown us charity and supported us in spite of our failings.

President Kunz in action, teaching the gospel.

Sister Kunz is also a wonderful teacher!

Our District

And, as is becoming more common when we go to zone conference, we found some old (young) friends who served with us in Sainshand.

Sister Taylor, who is about to go home.

Sister Tumenjargal, who is now a Sister
Training Leader

While in the capital we found a "Costco." Well, not really. It's a small store sandwiched into a maze of other shops. It's about the size of our living room. But it uses the signage and sells a few Kirtland products, like a nice selection of nuts. 

 

We found miniature Reeses cups!
And chili and lime gummy bears-

We are always looking for food items in Ulaanbaatar that we can't find in Sainshand. During our search for powdered sugar in a local grocery store, we came across frozen sheep heads. Two days later they were all gone.

And we found the biggest and best hamburger we think exists in Mongolia. The fries were delicious, too. These were actually slightly salted, which seems to be unusual based on the places we've tried French fries. Most fries have no salt.

As we headed home, we appreciated how much the roads are improved! Most potholes have been filled since our March and May trips, and some sections are completely repaved. On our way to the city, we had to take an alternate (dirt and dust) route that paralleled the road they were repaving. But a lot of projects like this are very fast. It resulted in a nice drive home back to Sainshand.

As we left the city, there must have been 15-20 trucks parked along the road, pretty evenly spaced, all selling watermelons! And a few semis, as well. Of course, we had to stop and take one with us - a watermelon, not a truck.

We also saw multitudes of people camping along the streams in the wide open spaces. Just like Americans, Mongolians use holidays for an opportunity to go camping. These are probably the people who bought up all the sheep heads in the grocery store!

People camp in tents next to friends and relatives'
gers, some with a whole community of horses, too. 

Horses going home from the races, evidently.

And a ger packed on top of a car instead of a camel. 
That's modernization, for you!

Also, the main Naadam festival may be in Ulaanbaatar, but every province, city, and village has its own. Most areas hold them on the weekends around July 8-15. In Ulaanbaatar, the official holidays are July 10-15. But in our Dornogobi province, it's July 29-31. So stay tuned for how it's celebrated here in a later post!