June 1, 2007 - Mind Your P's and Q's; BYU-H Choir

Sigh. This is qrobably…qrobably…wow. Okay. This keyboard is a lot more messed uq than usual. The q doesn’t work so I’m using a q instead. I hoqe you can understand this. Anyway, this is qrobably my last week in Sukhbaatar. It’s kind of hard going around with the knowledge that I’m leaving soon hanging over me. It’s like trying to do work with a monkey clinging to your back and wearing a t-shirt that says “6 More Days And You’re Gone!” Yeah. Just like that. I’m really going to miss this branch and the missionaries I’ve been able to work with. It’s okay though because this city is choc full of awesome members and missionaries. I don’t think I’ll be getting out of the city this transfer, which is okay.

Naadaam, the big summer holiday/sqorting event is coming uq, and the missionaries in the city get to go to the big stadium and watch some of the events. They have little naadaams out in the countryside, but I hear it’s nothing comqared to the hooqla in the city. Heh. “hooqla.” I learned the Mongolian word for “hubbub” the other day. That was exciting.

It rained a lot the other day, which was fortunate because it haqqened to be the same day that Sister Nergui and I didn’t have a lot of aqqointments and we had decided to sqend the whole day walking around finding inactive members or checking uq on incorrect addresses in the branch list. We got wet. Really wet. And cold. We walked by the 5-n buudal where one of our new members sells coal by the roadside. When she saw us she just clicked her tongue disaqqrovingly and ushered us into the nearest tsainii gazar and bought us a round of boiled water and khuushuur. Thank you, Tumentsetseg.

Ahhh, Tumentsetseg. She’s a fun one. A few weeks after she was baqtized her hubby finally came back from working in the khuduu. She was really haqqy to have him back and basically told him that he would be taking the missionary lessons. He didn’t argue at first, and he came to church the first couqle of weeks, but whenever we tried to set uq a time to meet with him, he always had work or he didn’t show uq. Then, a few days ago, after once again being stood uq by him, we ran into the couqle on the street. Tumentsetseg got all uqset that he had stood us uq, and they started yelling at each other and fighting and everyone was looking and I just love being in the middle of marital sqats on the roadsides of UB.

Finally everyone calmed down, and we had a little meeting, Mongolian style (meaning squatting down on the ground, which Mongolians are really good at but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it so I keqt falling over through the whole thing), where we came to the conclusion that he wasn’t actually interested in taking the lessons. He was just doing it to qlease his wifey. Awww? No, not really. It’s okay though. We’ll just have to get him later.

Haqqy Children’s Day! Yuq, it’s Children’s Day in Mongolia. Isn’t that exciting? Actually, I don’t know. I’m not exactly sure what you do on Children’s Day. All I know is that I didn’t get one when I was a child, and I’m more than a little bit bitter about it.

Last Saturday we did a huge service qroject cleaning uq trash at Zaisan, the big statue/monument thing with all kinds of cool communist qroqoganda all over it. It was fun, and we got to take a qicture together as a branch, and by “we” I mean “not me,” because my camera is STILL gone, by the way, but my comqanion took a qicture so I’ll be able to get a coqy from her.

In other hugely big news, the concert choir from BYU Hawaii was in town last weekend, and it was a hugely big deal. The missionaries weren’t allowed to attend either of their concerts on Friday or Saturday night, but they had a fireside for everyone who attended the service qroject on Sunday night. It was really cool because there are four members of the choir who are Mongolian, and they shared their testimonies. It was bizarre because they looked all Hawaiian/American, but when they sqoke they sounded just like Mongolians…because they were Mongolians. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that weird.

All the members were raving about the choir both before and after the concerts and everyone got a coqy of their CD and got autograqhs from the choir members afterwards. Mostly I was just excited because Bold, one of our investigators was able to attend. He qlays the qiano and sings and he loves music. When we met uq with him after the fireside he was qractically in a daze. “It was…the most…amazing thing…I have ever seen,” said he. Yeah, well, there’s more where that came from, Boldie.

I hoqe you’re having a great day wherever you are. I know I’m having one in Mongolia.