February 2, 2007
Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (Jan 26, 27, 28) we had a big opening for the new chapel in our area. We had 621 people (not including members) come to the opening. I know the exact number because Sister Hunt and I were the door greeters all three days of the opening and my job was to tally people as they came in. Sister Hunt's job was to hand them these little plastic booties to put over their feet so as not to track Mongolia in all over the new building.
More important than the number of visitors, however, is the number of referrals we got. The new building will serve three branches and our branch alone got 75 names that we have since divided between the three companionships to go find their homes and start teaching them. In going through the referral cards ahead of time we found this one that had been filled out by a family. In the comments section they had written, "This is a wonderful church. We want to go to the temple and be an eternal family." We divided the referrals up randomly, and everyone was hoping to get the Golden Family, as we called them, in their pile. Guess who ended up with them? Yep, Sister Hunt and me. When we saw it we started singing, "We got the Golden Family," a la Willy Wonka, and dancing around while the elders sat there, sullenly looking at their stack of ten-year-olds who had filled out the cards just for fun.
We went and met with the family this past week. They just moved in from the khuduu (countryside) a few months ago. They didn't have enough money for a ger and all five of them were living in the tuuz (roadside kiosk) that the father runs. A couple of weeks ago his brother gave them some money, and they were finally able to buy a ger, but I don't think they ever run the fire inside because coal is too expensive. As soon as we came in they scrounged around for some wood and started a fire. It is so different teaching a whole family together. Usually we teach young mothers or single women, but with the whole family there the Spirit was so strong. You could tell that they loved each other and wanted to learn together about this gospel.
Ever since I came to this area this one family has had us over for family home evening every week. We don't eat a lot of meals in gers when we go around teaching, but meeting with this family has introduced me to one of the worst forms of torture known to man: Mongolian eating culture. In Mongolia, you eat what is put in front of you. If your cup or your bowl gets less than halfway full, they refill it. When your host tells you to have some more, you must immediately take one more serving of everything on the table or you will offend them.
I had been sick this past week and was trying to take it easy on my stomach. We get to FHE and as usual we had our customary two bowls of boiled water and two heaping bowls of rice with meat. Already I was nearing Thanksgiving Day levels of fullness. Then the husband starts preparing these meat pastries (not buuz or khooshur, something I'd never had before) and I start to get a little bit nervous. We had the lesson while they were cooking and then the husband plops down this heaping bowlful of huge sheep-filled fried dumplings. "Eat!" they said, so I dutifully took the smallest one I could find. I haven't eaten anything here so far that tasted so bad that I couldn't eat it, but this thing was saltier than a mouthful of ocean water and I shuddered as I swallowed every bite. Sometimes when I bit down I crunched into pure salt and it made me want to gag. I struggled through every bite and slowed down as I started to finish, hoping that FHE would end before I was obligated to take another one. Finally the wife sat down and tried one and after one bite she said, "Oh gross! This is WAY too salty!" She explained that her husband grew up in the Gobi and they like things really salty down there. He just shrugged his shoulders and kept munching away.
More important than the number of visitors, however, is the number of referrals we got. The new building will serve three branches and our branch alone got 75 names that we have since divided between the three companionships to go find their homes and start teaching them. In going through the referral cards ahead of time we found this one that had been filled out by a family. In the comments section they had written, "This is a wonderful church. We want to go to the temple and be an eternal family." We divided the referrals up randomly, and everyone was hoping to get the Golden Family, as we called them, in their pile. Guess who ended up with them? Yep, Sister Hunt and me. When we saw it we started singing, "We got the Golden Family," a la Willy Wonka, and dancing around while the elders sat there, sullenly looking at their stack of ten-year-olds who had filled out the cards just for fun.
We went and met with the family this past week. They just moved in from the khuduu (countryside) a few months ago. They didn't have enough money for a ger and all five of them were living in the tuuz (roadside kiosk) that the father runs. A couple of weeks ago his brother gave them some money, and they were finally able to buy a ger, but I don't think they ever run the fire inside because coal is too expensive. As soon as we came in they scrounged around for some wood and started a fire. It is so different teaching a whole family together. Usually we teach young mothers or single women, but with the whole family there the Spirit was so strong. You could tell that they loved each other and wanted to learn together about this gospel.
Ever since I came to this area this one family has had us over for family home evening every week. We don't eat a lot of meals in gers when we go around teaching, but meeting with this family has introduced me to one of the worst forms of torture known to man: Mongolian eating culture. In Mongolia, you eat what is put in front of you. If your cup or your bowl gets less than halfway full, they refill it. When your host tells you to have some more, you must immediately take one more serving of everything on the table or you will offend them.
I had been sick this past week and was trying to take it easy on my stomach. We get to FHE and as usual we had our customary two bowls of boiled water and two heaping bowls of rice with meat. Already I was nearing Thanksgiving Day levels of fullness. Then the husband starts preparing these meat pastries (not buuz or khooshur, something I'd never had before) and I start to get a little bit nervous. We had the lesson while they were cooking and then the husband plops down this heaping bowlful of huge sheep-filled fried dumplings. "Eat!" they said, so I dutifully took the smallest one I could find. I haven't eaten anything here so far that tasted so bad that I couldn't eat it, but this thing was saltier than a mouthful of ocean water and I shuddered as I swallowed every bite. Sometimes when I bit down I crunched into pure salt and it made me want to gag. I struggled through every bite and slowed down as I started to finish, hoping that FHE would end before I was obligated to take another one. Finally the wife sat down and tried one and after one bite she said, "Oh gross! This is WAY too salty!" She explained that her husband grew up in the Gobi and they like things really salty down there. He just shrugged his shoulders and kept munching away.
Thinking the food had been declared inedible and that I was safe, I finished off the pastry. The wife apologized again for the food and then turned to me and said, "Are you finished? Eat! Eat another!" I wanted to die! My stomach lining was beginning to burst, my throat was burning from the salt, she knew that it tasted nasty, and STILL she was insisting that I have more! It was like the part from Matilda where the kid has to down an entire chocolate cake, only chocolate cake this was not. Through some kind of miracle I was able to get through another one and then it was time to go. Sister Hunt and I moaned and tottered our way down the hill from their house, dreading the bumpy meeker ride home. I won't tell you what happened to all that food later that night.
We've been having some great adventures with dogs lately. Practically every house has some kind of snarling mangy guard dog and there are always dogs roaming the streets. The generally just go about their own business, but if you get there attention or encroach on their territory you better pick up a rock fast or you're toast.
The other night we were looking for an address and started down a dark road, minding our own business, when two big dogs burst out of an open gate 20 yards up the road, barking and running right for us. There weren't any rocks around, and in my panic I tried to remember what Sister Hunt had taught me to say to dogs to get them to go away. The dogs were no more than twenty feet away when I cried, "Naash ir!" which just happens to mean "come here!" Luckily at that same moment Sister Hunt yelled the correct phrase, "Tsaasha yav!" a lot louder than my confused outburst, and the dogs chose to listen to her. We immediately turned around and started looking for another way around. We walked a few paces before Sister Hunt burst out laughing and asked, "Did you just say 'naash ir?'"
Then two nights ago we were knocking on a potential investigator's door, which, as usual, incurred the wrath of the ferocious guardbeast inside. He jumped at the gate door and it started to open, which caused Sister Hunt to scream and push back. This startled him a little and when we looked through a crack in the gate we saw that he was now barking from the front porch steps. Thinking we were safe now I entered in to another round of pounding on the door (it takes a while for Mongolians to come to the door and if you don't keep knocking they'll think you gave up). I checked through the crack again just in time to see the dog barrelling for the door. I braced my hands and leaned against the door just as he crashed into it and knocked me back a few inches. I was half screaming and half laughing and wholly at a loss as to where I was planning to go from there because I couldn't move from where I was or Sister Hunt and I would find ourselves face to face with the animal. I decided to stick with holding the door as he jumped at it again and again and finally the owner came out and held him back long enough to tell us we had the wrong address.
English class was pretty exciting yesterday. In one of our classes we usually only have about three students who show up, one of which is crazy, another of which just whines and asks how she can learn to speak English better everytime, and all of which are women. They must have switched some classes around, though, because we had all these high school students show up, three of which were guys. We had them introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their interests and such. This one guy introduced himself and told us that he loves R&B and hip hop, and that he is in a boy band with his friends called "Super Style." Later on in class we were talking about who our heroes are and why and when we got to Super Style Guy he said his heroes were Justin Timberlake, Ludacris, and some other Mongolian singer. He said he loved to sing his songs, so Sister Hunt jokingly asked if he was going to sing for us now. Without so much as a flinch he pushed back his chair, stood up, and started belting out this whole song. He even beat-boxed his own accompaniment. It was...amazing. English class is so much fun.
Anyway, later skater. More Mongolian fun next week.
-Sister Johnson
We've been having some great adventures with dogs lately. Practically every house has some kind of snarling mangy guard dog and there are always dogs roaming the streets. The generally just go about their own business, but if you get there attention or encroach on their territory you better pick up a rock fast or you're toast.
The other night we were looking for an address and started down a dark road, minding our own business, when two big dogs burst out of an open gate 20 yards up the road, barking and running right for us. There weren't any rocks around, and in my panic I tried to remember what Sister Hunt had taught me to say to dogs to get them to go away. The dogs were no more than twenty feet away when I cried, "Naash ir!" which just happens to mean "come here!" Luckily at that same moment Sister Hunt yelled the correct phrase, "Tsaasha yav!" a lot louder than my confused outburst, and the dogs chose to listen to her. We immediately turned around and started looking for another way around. We walked a few paces before Sister Hunt burst out laughing and asked, "Did you just say 'naash ir?'"
Then two nights ago we were knocking on a potential investigator's door, which, as usual, incurred the wrath of the ferocious guardbeast inside. He jumped at the gate door and it started to open, which caused Sister Hunt to scream and push back. This startled him a little and when we looked through a crack in the gate we saw that he was now barking from the front porch steps. Thinking we were safe now I entered in to another round of pounding on the door (it takes a while for Mongolians to come to the door and if you don't keep knocking they'll think you gave up). I checked through the crack again just in time to see the dog barrelling for the door. I braced my hands and leaned against the door just as he crashed into it and knocked me back a few inches. I was half screaming and half laughing and wholly at a loss as to where I was planning to go from there because I couldn't move from where I was or Sister Hunt and I would find ourselves face to face with the animal. I decided to stick with holding the door as he jumped at it again and again and finally the owner came out and held him back long enough to tell us we had the wrong address.
English class was pretty exciting yesterday. In one of our classes we usually only have about three students who show up, one of which is crazy, another of which just whines and asks how she can learn to speak English better everytime, and all of which are women. They must have switched some classes around, though, because we had all these high school students show up, three of which were guys. We had them introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their interests and such. This one guy introduced himself and told us that he loves R&B and hip hop, and that he is in a boy band with his friends called "Super Style." Later on in class we were talking about who our heroes are and why and when we got to Super Style Guy he said his heroes were Justin Timberlake, Ludacris, and some other Mongolian singer. He said he loved to sing his songs, so Sister Hunt jokingly asked if he was going to sing for us now. Without so much as a flinch he pushed back his chair, stood up, and started belting out this whole song. He even beat-boxed his own accompaniment. It was...amazing. English class is so much fun.
Anyway, later skater. More Mongolian fun next week.
-Sister Johnson
posted by Cheryl Johnson @ 8:08 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
My little Sister Johnson- you crack me up so much! I love reading your blog. My favorite part was the "Super Style" lover of Justin Timberlake and Ludacris. Oh man- did that bring flashbacks of Benji- he might be there you know, spreading his horizons not only to include China but Mongolia too. Ha ha. Well Ryan and I both miss you tons and hope you are doing well. I love ya!
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