Final Thoughts

 

This week's blog is to answer two questions we receive a lot: what will you miss when you leave Mongolia and what are you looking forward to about going back to America?

What we will miss:

The People!

• Friends. We have made so many friends who have touched our lives in Mongolia. Especially in a small town like Sainshand, people are welcoming, friendly, kind, and helpful. Theirs is a tradition of hospitality and gift-giving. It’s really been amazing to see such acceptance when we sometimes do or say the wrong things.  
• Young volunteer teachers from America and missionaries from Mongolia. We love them so much! And the other senior couples and our mission leaders. We are inspired by their sacrifice, charity-filled endurance, and whole-hearted dedication. We have learned from all of you and have appreciated your support and love. 
• Our church congregation. They are truly pioneers. Our little group in Sainshand is so new. Most people who joined were the first members in their family and usually joined alone without family support. But they know the Gospel is true, and they are brave enough to choose to follow Christ, no matter the opposition. They come on Sundays alone and find friendship, fellowship, and unity as they worship, play, and serve together.  
• Our English students. Some have become so close.
• The teachers in the schools who we shared classes with. They are kind, helpful, and appreciative. 

The culture

• We admire the respect we see, especially for the elderly. We also delight in the widespread enjoyment and love for children. 
• In every home we visit, we are welcomed, given refreshment, and treated like royalty, even by the most humble. 
• We love the ethnic dress that is worn so proudly. 
• We have enjoyed music, dance, and ceremonial greetings. Traditional art forms are very much a part of contemporary Mongolian identity, and it's a beautiful identity. 
• The celebrations: Tsagaan Sar and Naadam. So much symbolism, focus on family, and maintaining cultural traditions. 
• The food. We like to experience new foods and feel like it's a good way to really understand a culture. Traditional Mongolian dishes are hearty and filling. We've experienced quite a lot of Korean food, also, like kimbap. And then there were all the unusual, but delicious snack foods: lobster flavored potato chips, raisin water drinks, milk curds, Russian Kontik snack cakes, Crazy Bee candies, etc. Every trip to the store was a day of discovery!
• The gers (yurts). Such a part of Mongolia. We worry that they will disappear. So many people are moving to the city and to apartments. We understand. Moving from a one room home to a multi-room apartment with indoor plumbing has got to feel great. But those gers are so unique, have such history, and represent a free, peaceful life and resourceful lifestyle!

The animals

• Bactrian (two humped) camels. They are so regal and majestic - well, in the winter!
• The Bankhar dogs, especially the puffball puppies! 
• The wide open spaces and free-roaming herds. We only saw fences to keep animals off the railroad tracks and from the yards of homes in the towns. We loved driving and having to slow for goats, sheep, cows, or horses crossing the highway. Or camels. It’s their land – we were just passing through. 

All sorts of other stuff

• The lack of stop signs. We only saw them at railroad crossings. Busy intersections have stop lights, and courtesy and civility rule the others. You don’t go if there is a car coming. You take turns. When you need to get into traffic on a crowded street, you insert your fender into a line of cars with bravery and assertiveness, and people let you in. It works; it’s amazing. Horns are used mostly as a gentle warning – don’t back up, I’m behind you. (And every time a light turns green. It’s always assumed that whoever is first in line at the light is asleep.)
• The sunsets of the Gobi!
• Being local celebrities. Every day we got greetings and smiles as we walked across playgrounds or down our stairs. Among the 4-15 year-old crowd, we were a great opportunity for them to practice their English “Hello” on. It’s been so fun. We will become regular nobodies when we are back in America. 
• Being able to devote full-time service without a myriad of other distractions. 

 What we are looking forward to:

• Seeing our family in person! Hugs, dinners together, celebrations, events, etc. We've been very grateful for telephones, email, video calls, packages, and cards, but there's no substitute for a good hug. 
• Our home. Our Mongolian apartment was home. But we missed our home. Particularly its clothes dryer, sink disposal, and dishwasher. 
• Our yard with its lawn and roses and garden. Growing our own tomatoes. Picking asparagus. Our fruit trees. Doesn’t matter if we are in American or Mongolia, store produce isn’t the same as that from the garden.
• Our dog. It’s the longest period John has ever been without a dog. It was hard.
• Our church congregation. We have great friends in New Harmony, too, and we’ve missed them. 
• Hearing the sacrament prayers in English. Not being the only ones to sing the hymns in English.
• Our neighbors and friends. We have a lot of catching up to do!
• The temple. We have so missed enjoying the peace and spirit of the House of the Lord. It is a wonderful blessing that a temple is coming to Mongolia. It can’t happen fast enough. We wish we could have planned temple trips for the Sainshand saints who want them so badly.
• Mountains, especially the red rock cliffs of Southern Utah and seeing the Kolob cliffs every day. 
• Snow skiing.
• Kayaking. 
• Sushi.

We stopped on the way home from the airport for sushi.

It was wonderful to worship in the temple again.

Mongolia and our friends there will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Mongolia Mission Weeks 75 - 77 - We're Back!

Mongolia Mission Weeks 75-77

Due to a number of interesting situations and challenges, we haven't published our last few blogs yet. So, in response to popular demand, here are the highlights of our last few weeks in Sainshand:

In our week 75, things were beginning to change for us as we approached the end of our time in Mongolia.  We began experiencing "last" events: our last round trip to the city, our last zone conference, our last classes, our last church services, and our last goodbyes. 

Every trip to the city is unique, and we always find new wonders on the road. One sight every trip includes is trucks with leaning loads - always leaning towards the highway shoulder. The roads have a slight slant down from the middle, and over time, some loads start shifting. Trucks have higher and looser loads than we've seen in the US. 

This load leans more than most we've seen.

After all this time, though, the traffic in Ulaanbaatar still caught us off guard and made our planned 6 hour trip to the city become 7 hours, as we were delayed by an hour after getting to the city limits. The last 3-4 miles took an hour. 

John's afraid that his Mongolian driving skills of just
butting into gridlocked traffic will not serve him well in the US.

In Ulaanbaatar, we got some meetings in and helped serve food at zone conferences. We also met Kim and Lisa Clark, a senior couple from America who had originally been assigned to serve in Khentii, a town in eastern Mongolia. When they got to Mongolia, their assignment changed to replace us in Sainshand!! We're sorry for Khentii but so excited that another senior couple will take over teaching our wonderful students and loving our little flock for the next 14 months. We were able to join the Clarks and the Harts for dinner together one night. The Harts left Mongolia the same time we did.

Monday night dinner out. The Clarks are
seated closest to the camera.

The hamburgers here are messy, so
eating establishments provide gloves.

Our zone conference was wonderful, of course. Each one seems to get better than the last. And we got to see so many of the young teachers we have served with, especially since the three most eastern zones met together. 

It made for a large gathering.

Eleven of us who were returning home got to share testimonies and experiences. We all did our best but felt totally inadequate to put words together to share our feelings and testimonies.

The Horitos, another senior couple (with ties to Cedar City!), were in charge of meals for these conferences. They decided to make a twist on Hawaiian haystacks. An explanation for those of you who are not familiar with haystacks: they are a parfait of rice with toppings of meat, various vegetables, and fruits served buffet style. They can be very individualized to your taste. But the Horitos called them "neigh-stacks"—because they were made with horse meat and toppings like horses might eat, such as carrots, lettuce, and apples. They turned out great. Not everyone may have realized exactly what meat they were eating, though- 

Kudos to the Horitos for another great lunch
that included lots of fruits, vegetables, drinks,
and birthday cake, since there are always birthdays!

We'll miss the old tires that have been cut, sculpted, and painted into fun works of art!

When we got back to Sainshand we enjoyed the fact that spring is the time for end of year performances. That Saturday, one of our young women called us and very urgently thought we should join her at the local theatre to see a dance group putting on their show. We were between projects and hurried to join her.  We were amazed at the quality of the dancing with both contemporary and traditional dances.

Enkhrii thought this was probably our last chance to see such a performance. We were so glad she thought of us and let us know! After all this time, there are still so many things we wish we could see and do! There are days where 18 months feels like a long time, as we miss our family and see how much our grandchildren are changing. There are days we are just plain tired. On other days, time seems to have passed very quickly and we feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what we want to experience and accomplish.

We did get to attend the 1st grade graduation of our dear friend Michelle. You've never seen anything more adorable than 100 or so Mongolian 1st graders singing their hearts out, bowing after reciting their lines (poems about letters of their alphabet), and wanting to dance even when it wasn't time for them to dance! We also got to attend a major regional event where children of all ages took turns competing in music and dance. We saw boys as young as about 8 singing serious songs, some with dancers performing to their songs. 

Batmunkh, the mission office guy in charge of apartments, drove the Clarks to Sainshand in our week 76. For some extra challenge, we switched up apartments. We've been living on the 6th floor of our apartment building, and two elders were living on the 1st floor of the building next to ours. With Clarks' arrival, we moved the elders to the 6th floor and put the senior couple on the 1st floor. We had often wondered whose idea it was to put the old people on the 6th floor without an elevator. Maybe it was to make sure we got our exercise in- 

Generations of elders and sisters accumulate
lots of extraneous stuff on apartment balconies.
It was time to purge.

It was much more work than we thought it would be - actually three moves in one. Besides the swap of the two apartments, we moved into a temporary apartment for a week. This meant basically packing up a week early into suitcases and living out of them as we finished everything. But Batmunkh, Baagii, and Chuka came to our rescue, as did the sisters and elders! 

Hiking things up and down the stairs is a lot of work!

Our temporary apartment had a really cool clock!

We got to experience our final Gobi dust storm.

And its aftermath.

Our final  Gobi sunset.

We attended our last youth activity at church, where we played get-to-know you games to introduce the Clarks. And we hosted a seminary dinner at our apartment (just before we moved) for the teenagers who attend scripture study during the week. They are such amazing young people!

One special experience was being part of a book launch. Misheel, an excellent English student, has become good friends with us, especially Kathy. Misheel wrote a romance/fanasty book in English and published it just before we left. We got to attend the launch and book signing. 

It was impressive to see how much
Michelle is accomplishing at age 17!

Her proud dad speaking at the book launch.

There is a monastery just down the hill from our apartment complex. Before we left, we finally made it there to visit. Most of the buildings were closed, but we enjoyed what we got to see and finally checked that one off our list.

Beautifully ornate and colorful inside.

Week 77 was our last week in Sainshand. At least one little 7th grader ended up in tears as we passed out chocolate kisses from America and told the students goodbye. Later, she waited for us in the hallway and gave us a very special note of gratitude for our teaching. We took the Clarks to the 3rd school to introduce them to our classes, showed them a few of our favorite shopping places, and did what we could to answer all the questions one has when trying to establish life in a small city in Mongolia. We met with the principal of the 3rd school and with the minister of the department of education. We also met for the last time with friends from the medical school and were treated with lunch by friends from the English department at our 3rd school. Everyone was so gracious. We came home overflowing with thoughtful gifts and remembrances. 

On our last Sunday, we both spoke in church and transitioned the group leadership of the congregation from Elder Rose to Elder Clark. Several people came to our services just to say goodbye, including English teachers from the 3rd school. Our dear friend Alice even translated for Kathy during her Sunday School lesson where her discussion was about the importance of families. Afterwards there was a potluck. All of this was so hard. We will miss the people of Sainshand! They have been so warm, friendly, kind, and helpful.

We know that, while in Sainshand, we have done as much as we could, focusing on teaching English and contributing to our local church congregation. We have met many wonderful teachers, students, merchants, and others. We were told before we came that even if we did not know the language (and we certainly didn't have any language tutoring before we came or after we got here), we would be able to use the universal language of love. We truly have been able to achieve effective back and forth communication with love. People have been patient with our cultural bumbles and our inability to express ourselves without Google translate. It's been a privilege to rub shoulders with and learn from them.

We have felt God's love for them and we have felt God's love for us. We've been protected from sickness and injury and blessed with words to say when we needed them. Activities and dinners worked out with obvious divine help. We've been guided in our teaching. Our experiences here have shown time and time again how the Lord's arms are always outstretched, ready to comfort and support all of us if we just ask.

Stay tuned for 2 more installments before we end this Mongolian season of our blog. These 2 installments will include:

•     our final thoughts about what we'll miss and what we won't miss
•     our off-the-beaten-track tour we took in remote areas of Mongolia

Mongolia Mission Week 74 - Market snapshots, meaningful interactions, and multinational Conference!

 Mongolia Mission Week 74

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). 

This week we want to share with you what some of our typical markets look like. In these markets, we get a good idea of what imports are currently accessible for Mongolian shop owners. We see lots of Russian and German chocolate, Vietnamese chips, and Korean kimchi. Sometimes something like baking powder or cheese will disappear for weeks until supplies make it to this landlocked country. 

Generally speaking, market shelves are packed as tightly as possible.

Clothing markets don't often have dressing areas.

There's often an eclectic selection of products.
It's not uncommon to see women's bras for sale
in the same store as hardware.

You can enter a doorway off the street and find a whole maze of shops owned by different people, usually sitting on stools behind counters full of merchandise. Sometimes it's hard to tell where one person's goods end and another's begins. Cash boxes are often cardboard and kept somewhere under the counter. Sometimes shopkeepers will pull out the box, set it on their counter, and run to the next vendor to get your change (They generally need close to exact change.). It's a refreshingly trusting society. 

There are little indoor food markets on every street, sometimes multiple food shops on one street. Walking into one is very much like walking into another one, although some may specialize more in produce or try to stock international foods like cream cheese when they can. Each has at least one freezer section. You can buy frozen chicken or dumplings by the piece from an open bag. Or in closed bags. There are many different ice cream bars available.

 This is an interesting ice cream cone treat kids like,
flat-topped and only covered with a blue piece of plastic. 

Choco pies come in a variety of flavors and are very popular. They are
like cookie sandwiches with flavored cream filling, covered in chocolate. 

Dried meat dates back to the times of Chinggis Khan. People soften it in soups or gnaw on it.

Little food markets usually have a big selection of alcohol,
especially Russian and Mongolian vodka.

Most little markets have a dizzying supply of snacks, candy, and chips. Chips come in a
variety of flavors (usually not plain), from barbeque to squid to onion and sour cream.

Most markets have a large supply of Ramen-type soups,
from Japanese to Korean to American, sometimes
with hot water to prepare it on the spot and eat at tables.

Each market also has shelves and coolers of juice and soda. 

Secondary schools don't always have school lunch programs, but they often have breaks where kids leave the school and go grab snacks. Now the weather is warming up, we see lots of ice cream bars being eaten on the streets. 

It's hard to completely portray these markets that are a very interesting piece of our experience here and offer us plenty of chances to meet friendly shopkeepers and let them know they can get free English classes.

Now for our amazing week in Sainshand!

On Thursday we had an open house at our church. Several folks came from Ulaanbaatar to conduct the open house, bringing their posters, pictures, snacks, and experience. The open house, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, had nice attendance. We experienced several miracles in the people who attended. Following the open house, all of us involved (our guests from UB, our English teachers, and several local members) all donned "Helping Hands" vests and went to clean up a park and war monument that overlooks the city. 

Our team, along with our pile of collected trash.

Two deacons who contributed a lot that day.

The open house featured displays about several church programs and the initiatives of our related charity, "Deseret International Charities." Attendees learned about humanitarian projects, self reliance and addiction recovery programs, family history, and of course, English teaching programs.

Odmaa talked about English programs offered through the church.

Mandy helped participants sign up for Family Search,
the world's largest genealogical database.

Pujee showcased humanitarian projects happening all over Mongolia.

Chukka talked about our group and exhibited church magazines for different ages.

One of our church members who served as an usher.

It was an event where leaders and members of our community learned more about us. There was a wonderful feeling as Mongolians expressed to other Mongolians things near and dear to their hearts. People in this city (and in our little church group) caught a glimpse of the worldwide impact of our church and its members. "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:20, Holy Bible, King James version)

Then on Saturday and Sunday, our congregation watched General Conference. It's when the President of our church, the 12 apostles, and several other church leaders speak. This time was extra special because it was the first Conference following the death of President Russell M. Nelson, so the first meeting included a "solemn assembly" where each group of members, worldwide, stand and sustain the new prophet and his counselors. Even in Sainshand, Mongolia, where these new members raised their hands to show their faith and support. 

 

Because of the variety of ages in our group, we set up tables and provided coloring pages, conference Bingo, and other activities - and food - for people while they watched.

We can't find root beer, but multiple flavors of Fanta are everywhere.

Between sessions, we went for a walk and had to investigate a potential car behind our church - we need a new car when we get home!

Weekend multitasking included making cabbage salad, 

banana bread, caramel corn, and macaroni salad.

We were also watching the return of the Artemis II spaceship from the moon.
And fitting in video cleaning checks of young English teacher apartments.

Altogether, it was just another not-so quiet week for the Roses while the schools were still on break between terms. But it was amazing with with the open house and General Conference weekend. The love of the Savior was very evident. So was the fact that, by the Spirit, we can get answers to our sincere questions. The messages and spiritual uplift were wonderful. We are so blessed to be led by a prophet, apostles, and other leaders. We know that Jesus Christ leads His church through those called to lead and receive revelation and that this church blesses people's lives in many ways.