March 9, 2007

Sain batsgaan uu!

Sorry about the no email last week. The whole internet center that we were at went down, and I couldn't even resend or save what I had written. All's for the best, though, because I was in a bit of a bad mood last week and my email was...lacking. This week I'm all smiles and giggles. Right after this I'm heading out to the khuduu (countryside) for some ultimate [frisbee] on ice, a favorite activity among the missionaries here.

AND! I have my first baptism tonight! My companion has been teaching this 16 year old girl, Oyuunsovd, for a while and she was basically ready to be baptized when I came to this area, but I'm still really excited.

We had a really awesome Zone Conference yesterday on obedience, but my favorite quote was from Elder Plunkett, the mission doctor, that he gave during his little medical schpiel: "There ARE some missionaries here who don't have parasites..." Nevertheless, the higher ups decided that since it’s so hard to diagnose parasites with the equipment available in Mongolia, everybody gets to take worm medicine! Huzzah!

We also found out who the new mission president is going to be at Zone Conference. Elder Alan Anderson of the Asia Area Presidency is going to be taking over for President Bryner in July. I'll be really sad to see President and Sister Bryner go, but Elder Anderson knows and loves this area and I know he'll be great. He came and visited the Mongolian mission last year.

I had a bit of a depressing realization during one of my English classes this week. We were talking about seasons and I was having the students describe what the weather is like in each season and how they are different. The thing is, they listed, "cold," "ice," and "snow" for three out of the four seasons. I tried to tell them that normally it rains in the spring and the fall, but apparently not here.

I really like teaching English. It’s usually fun and even when its not I can make witty little comments and no one understands what I'm saying. Sometimes it’s REALLY fun because my students don't think I speak Mongolian. I teach at this one police investigators office and the students are older and a little bit rowdy. They just talk to each other during class and usually, from the bits that I do understand, they don't say very appropriate things. It was kinda bothering me, but I didn't know how to get them to stop. One day while I was writing on the board, one of the guys said to his friend (in Mongolian), "Hey, our teacher's kinda cute" and without turning around I said, "Bayarlaa" (thank you) and just kept on writing. When they heard me answer in Mongolian, and then realized that I had understood them, they all started freaking out. "She speaks Mongolian! She has been understanding us the whole time!" Then one of them realized, "Hey, we've been saying some bad stuff. Why hasn't she said anything before?" Then the one woman who comes to class and actually pays attention turned to them and said, "Because you guys are idiots and she could care less what you say." Ha! That shut them up! They've been much better behaved since then.

One of my other classes that I teach is at a high school and the first day I almost wet my pants when I saw how big the class was. There were about 40 students and now that I have a Mongolian companion I teach all on my own so I was pretty scared. Yeah, the class started out with 40 students, but luckily it never stays that way. Class starts at 12:00 and apparently at 12:30 half the students have a different class so they all get up and leave. Then through the next hour of class students trickle out until by the end of class there's usually only about 10 students left.

Yesterday was Women's Day in Mongolia, and it was really cute to see all these guys walking around with roses and cakes to give to the women in their lives. We all went out to a Chinese restaurant after Zone Conference to celebrate and the sister missionaries got flowers. It was nice to go out to eat at a real restaurant for a change instead of a guanz (little hole-in-the-wall cafes that only serve Mongolian food which usually makes you sick), except that we had just had pizza during Zone Conference and I was still full.

Then later on one of our teaching appointments fell through so we stopped in at a nearby member's house and they fed us so much food! It wasn't even dinnertime! After that we were going to our branch president's ger just to pick him up and take him with us to meet this family we're teaching. We hadn't been in the house for more than 30 seconds when his wife plops two heaping plates of spaghetti and (sheep) meatballs in front of us. I just groaned and stared at it and my companion explained to them that we had just been fed. Tedend khamaagui. We ate it anyway, and I was actually grateful that the family wasn't home so we could keep walking around. If I had stopped moving I'm pretty sure I would have lain down and died. Who would have thought that one of the biggest challenges I'd face while serving in a third world country was too much food?

Well, the snow is calling to me. I hope you all are enjoying spring, the season that does not exist where I am. Later!