And then, yeah …

Snap, I don't recognize anyone anymore.

Actually, I almost forgot that that's where I came from. Weird. So, went out to the big Darkhan sign and took pretty pictures.



Went out and looked at camels, and one of them was foaming at the mouth and growling at everything. Asked the herdsman what that meant and he said he didn’t know because he had never seen it happen before. Yup. . . (we prefer fun non-growling camels)



Transfer calls happened, one of the ZLs and a new missionary left. Myagmarjav (Migaa for short, the ZL) has this thing for smashing people in the face with cake on their birthdays; he's gotten half the people in the mission I think. SO we decided for his last day to get him back. We set up a fake one at the church, turned out all the lights in the chapel and tripped him up at the podium. He squealed like a little girl. Then the lights came back on and we just sang to him. Then he calmed down. What he didn't know was that right after that the DL and I snuck into his apartment. The video tells the rest better.



But for one thing, originally we were just going to stick it lightly on his face, but I think muscle memory got away from me a little and I punched him with a pair of cake-knuckles.

And then, picked up a way sweet family and we have a way good investigator who has a solid date for 3/20. She's changed so much in the 1 1/2 months we've been meeting with her.

Stuff, I dunno, I can't think good no more. I can't speak reasonable words anymore. You can't say that [Mom: no idea what that is] in English but I'm too lazy to fix it. And then, yeah … Greetings to people, you know who you are. If you live in Arizona and know Sister Tsenglee, say hi.

Nifty Yum Bailee

Weather is warm. Didn't get my camera but got pictures on other peoples cards and stuff.



Only ate 120 buuz this year [Mom update: down from 200 last year]. Desire kind of ran out and not that many people invited us anyways. Plus, I didn't have my deel on day one. Called up the Zone leaders that night and they said they would send it the next morning, but they forgot. So I called up another set of Zones and got it sent in a miker from the city.

The miker driver called at 2 in the morning; I went stumbling out the door with my companion, and at that hour I really couldn't put on friendly niceties. Due to the half stumbling drunk nature of my walking the driver thought I was a thief until he realized I was white. Then we walked around a lot and drank airag and stuff.



Then there was zone conference; translated the whole thing into sign language. It was pretty cool making new connections among faith, testimony, and hope. Nifty yum bailee. Works doing good, got some people getting ready to go in for interviews and stuff, and I'm going to go translate one pretty soon. Whoop.

Oh yeah, got a picture of my three children and grandson. yay, my posterity grows. Tegeed, yeah, I dunno. I’m trying to round up pictures from people and stuff. We moved our cleaner today.

I'll nab pictures and yavuulna them.

Fireside with Elder Russel M. Nelson

So, this week, already wrote you about the cool part last email daa.

Went on a split with the DL, which was cool since I haven't gotten to take lead in a lesson forever so I was cool to get to be lead teacher again. It's kinda like my 3rd transfer again, when there isn’t a native speak, people will actually stop being annoying and try to pay attention. Were also working in the area that m DL was born into like 1 1/2 years ago. We were looking for an address I had been to 1 time a month ago, and felt really good about this being the right road cause we recognized it, but then got to the end and realized that was because we had been down it 3 times. We did that a lot.

Got 3 people to church with baptismal dates, woo.

Going to Erdenet to translate a baptismal interview next week, woo.

Don't worry about the camera, Elder Jones is going to hook me up and get my camera repaired, and over Tsagaan Sar I might not even have a deel to wear so not a lot of pictures to take anyways.

Tell Sarah to drink dried goat cheese mixed in boiled whole milk with a little oil and salt. It seriously works. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking about her.

Yeah, I kinda realized I didn't call anyone else at Christmas, my bad. That was a really interesting time period.

Installed a light door bell at an investigators house this morning, thinking around ideas how to make it easiest to produce more and install them faster and easier.

Oh yeah, the Apostolic Blessing left by Elder Nelson at the General Fireside:

It is the privilege of the Twelve to give Apostolic Blessings. The blessings are fulfilled when you are obedient to the law.

The specific blessing included: to desire to learn more about God; to pray every day; to know you are His children and that you were created in His image; to learn about Jesus, to love Him, and to desire to live in the pattern of His life; love at home; that your home will be a place of peace and love; that Jesus and his representatives will always be welcome; that you will read the scriptures in your home and that you will teach and learn from them every day; with your economic and physical needs, that the Lord will provide what your need of food, warmth, and clothing; with health and strength sufficient for your needs; with a love for your ancestors and the opportunity to do work for them in the temple; that the country will prosper according to the will of God; that Elder Maxwell’s blessing will be fulfilled to the end that Mongolia will become a beacon light to the nations round about.

Happy Birthday [Mom]

Oldie.

Yeah, it's Tuesday, and we just had a mission conference with Elder Nelson yesterday. There is lots of stuff that can't really be fully explained. Let’s say he opened his talk with, "I feel there are many of you here today who have come fasting and praying to find an answer to something from me. So, ask." I had a strong desire to ask myself but had the very strong prompting that everything I wanted to know would be said, but there was someone else here who needed to have a prophet speak directly to them. And in retrospect I understand it well. On the cool easy to understand side of things, "write in you journals about the church in Mongolia now when you are working with branches here and the way you think the church is already established in Mongolia, and then show them to your grandchildren when there are stakeS, missionS, and a temple in this country. Yeah.

Train rides are cool.

Bumped into the lead pastor of the deaf church in Darkhan, and since she and her husband have connections with everyone in town they are saying that we are these horribly scary people that brain wash and beat people up. All of our investigators heard it, but one guy was pretty funny about it, he heard about how we were horrible people abusers as we were setting up a service project to install a light bulb based door bell at his apartment. Ha-ha funny, oh yeah, and as usual the pastor told us there was no difference between her and us on any doctrinal level, in a moment of unusual bluntness for me I told her the difference was that God chose the church’s Prophet and he in turn chose the rest, but she chose herself and that’s where her authority ends. She wants to meet later.

APs didn't take my camera to get fixed, going to try to get it done on my own. Going camera-gui over Tsagaan Sar would suck.

P-day is Wednesday this week

The Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission is hosting a visiting General Authority Monday and Tuesday so preparation day (p-day) is postponed until Wednesday. Which means email and laundry are both postponed.

Maybe 2 extra days worth of laundry won't be too bad during the winter months!

More Stuff Happens

That was Elder Hadfield with a dead fox on his head.

This week, stuff happened. I can finally say most things in sign language. But other than that work was pretty rocky this week, got burned a lot. We only have 1 witness in both branches that will go, and the one day he had time to go with us, we got burned all day long, and it’s pretty funny in retrospect. One lady was in her house, but her phone broke so we couldn't send text, so we banged on the door to no avail and then just had to leave. Life's funny like that. Meeting with inactive members and stuff, they're doing pretty good, but then both of them caught nasty colds Saturday from going on the branch outing and couldn’t come to church Sunday, also funny. But our investigator attendance increased from 1 to 2, so maybe next week it will nautilus up to 4. What’s the name of that guy who made the formula for that again?

Yeah, there are many people who will be mad if you don't come here. And me saying I did it all on my own would be an outright lie, and a very arrogant one at that. Part of me was waiting for someone else to tell you as well. And as usual, President Smartt is right. Picking up is one thing, and then there was my zone leader who's mom got his phone number from one of the couples and called him once a week his whole last half transfer but luckily he was the super elder that spent like 3 minutes of his whole mission trunky, and that was the last day of Tsagaan Sar and he went off the next day, and it was still only 3 minutes.

An Apostle is coming next week, My companion is a little miffed that we go into the city Monday and then get sent back out the morning the day of the fire side. The last time an Apostle came here was before most of the missionaries became members, so they're all really excited, me too, honestly.

But yeah, I'm forgetting how to talk with my mouth; sometimes the senior couples don’t understand me at all. Elder Olpin thought I had been doing sign language my whole mission and that was part of the language I had been called to, which is rather funny to me considering my hands are kind of retarded from onset of carpal tunnel from computers, boxing, and drawing all the time. . . but whatever.

I learned to skate and not die, triumph.

Stuff and stuff . . .

Q: Are you training deaf kids as in ESL students or is your new companion deaf (or some other meaning)?
A: My companion, the guy I'm with all the time, is deaf, as in he can't hear anything and doesn't make word noises with his mouth.

Q: Have to admit that I chuckled when I read that you had slept through your stop - how many were with you? Did you mean Selenge the city or Selenge the aimag?
A: There were three of us, and the actual city name is Sukhbaatar I think.

So anyways, wandered around and found people all week, got 9 investigators this week, so that's pretty good. My companion has this beautiful thought that everything on his mission is going to be perfect from the very start still, so a lot of the hard parts are a shock to him, but he takes the bumps pretty well.

As far as language goes, it’s getting pretty good, I've gone from comprehending nothing to understanding my companion when he that he thought one of the zone leaders looked like Pippen riding on one of the Ents from The Lord of the Rings.

Had an interview with President Andersen, which was cool. Translated my companion’s interview, that was hard. President told my companion I was one of the most different/unique elders in the mission, which was funny.

Uh, and then stuff and stuff. . . .

Anyways my camera is still busted so here’s something random.