December 29, 2006 - I'm Still in Mongolia

Sain bain uu!

I've been in Mongolia for just over a week. There's so much to say I don't know where to start!

We finally made it to our area on Monday. Its about a 15 minute meeker ride just to get to our area and from there we either walk or take another meeker to wind our way through the ger district. I should probably tell you what a meeker is at this point. Think of a VW van, or "hippie-mobile" as I like to call them, and then suck all the fun and soul out of it, inject a healthy dose of Soviet-style wear and tear, and then you have a meeker. They can seat about 15 people, so naturally there's never fewer than twenty people in at once. You better get rid of any concept of personal space you may have had before you get on a meeker, because there's no such thing. I haven't been on a meeker ride yet that didn't make me sick to my stomach.

The buses are a little bit cheaper than meekers, but since you can stand up in them they try to stuff even more people in them. A few days ago we were riding a bus when this drunk guy got on and started making a ruckus. The lady in charge of taking money and calling the stops told him he had to get off and he wouldn't, so the bus driver pulled over, stopped the bus, pulled him off the bus, and started beating him up. Of course I didn't understand anything that was going on, as they were all yelling in Mongolian. I just stood there, blissfully ignorant of what was going on and not-so-blissfully hoping that I wasn't next.

I don't really know how to describe the ger districts to you. I knew a lot of people lived in gers around the city, but you can't really understand how many until you see it with your own eyes. Our area spreads over several mountain tops which are covered with gers in little fenced in areas. [See photo in Dec 24 Blog below] Some people also have permanent wooden houses next to their gers, but they only use those in the summer. The gers are much warmer.

Last Monday night we went to a members house to have FHE. FHE in a ger. It was pretty fun. The family had an 11 year-old daughter and a five or six-year old son. We had a little lesson and then they fed us dinner. They had a big store-bought cake for dessert, which apparently the little boy was really excited about because in the opening prayer he blessed the cake and not the food. The mom had us say another prayer on the food.

I haven't had a whole lot of Mongolian food yet. The most I had was on Tuesday when we went to visit the family of a branch member who's brother had just died. Apparently when someone dies there's a whole slew of funeral activities, and we participated in the sitting-around-quietly-for-a-really-long-time-while-all-the-grandmas-twirl-their-beaded-necklaces-and-the-official-Mongolian-funeral-chant-song-plays activity.

Most of the family members were not LDS, but there were two twin sisters who were return missionaries and they told us what was and wasn't okay to eat. I had my first cup of salted-milk-stuff drink, and at first I thought it was pretty gross. All of a sudden, though, the thought came to my mind that I was drinking a really salty tortilla chip and all of a sudden that made it alright. Finally after almost two hours of sitting we went out and helped chop up potatoes and carrots and some lamb meat. Its customary to provide some kind of service for the family since they will be hosting and feeding countless visitors over the next few weeks.

We have a map of our area, or at least a copy of a picture of a map of our area, but the way the "addresses" work in Mongolia there's pretty much no way to get around unless you have someone with you who knows the area. We have about 6 or 7 branch missionaries in our branch who go along with us whenever we go out to do work. Even with their help we spend most of our night walking up and down icy mountain paths trying to find a ger that actually has a number on it so we can find where we're going.

Sometimes the branch missionaries are hard to coordinate with, but luckily the elders who served in our area before Sister Hunt and me recommended the help of a man named Tumurbair (Iron Building) who is a branch member that just loves to go out working with us. He is the cutest little elf of a man. He looks like he's about 70, but he told us the other day that he was 47. Go figure. He has the tiniest little legs but he walks so fast! He likes to sing when he walks, and when we're particulary lost in the winding "streets" of Khailaast he likes to say, "It's okay, we're doing the Lord's work." Even on the days when we haven't arranged to meet him he somehow pops up in the randomest places and he's always ready to help. I thought his name, "Iron Building," was fitting, but then we looked him up in our branch list, and apparently his name is really Tumer Bayr, which means "Ten Thousand Joys." Again, go figure.

Mongolia is pretty dang cold, y'all, but it's not bad. It takes Sister Hunt and I about 10 minutes just to get all our long underwear on, but it works. My favorite part is the layer of ice that forms around my hood and on the outside of my scarf from the moisture in my breath.

Its pretty hard to find work right now. We're both new to the area, and with the few investigators we have its a challenge to even find their homes. We've spent entire nights just looking and not ever finding, but at least we're going 100 percent the whole time.

Well, I think my time is about up. I'm healthy and happy and I hope you all are too!

Shine jil bayrin mend!