August 24, 2007 - Turning Mongolian & Teaching

Just stories this week. My companion and I were going to teach a lesson to Battsetseg and Batzaya the other night and as I rounded the fence that leads to their front door I was greeted with the sight of two splayed, skinned, and all too recently dead sheep laying out in the front yard with visiting relatives busily removing *censored* and *ewww*. Just then Battsetseg stepped out of the house to greet us and when she realized what all was going on she immediately looked at me to see how the poor American girl was handling the sheep-scene. Luckily I usually do all my freaking out on the inside and therefore was able to appear calm and collected. Then, as a bonus, during the middle of the lesson her mom brought in a freshly cooked batch of I-don’t-know-what. It was tubular and full of blood mixed with flour and spices ‘n such, and you know what? I ate it. Yeah, I did. And it was pretty good. I didn’t ask for seconds, though.

I don’t know what’s going on but I really think I’m turning Mongolian. The other day we stepped in to visit one of our new members on our way to another appointment. We chatted for a few minutes and they poured everyone a big bowl of tarag, which is this really sour yogurt stuff. I used to hate it but I’ve since gotten used to it, and I just started chugging it down. Then the branch missionary sitting next to me was all like, “Ene yag khuduunii tarag shig” (“This is just like countryside tarag”) and without thinking I just said, “Ti!” (“Yeah!”). We both paused and she gave me a weird look like, “How in the world do you know countryside tarag from city tarag?” and then we both started laughing.

Haley! I can’t stand it! The chick at the internet is playing that Mexican artist you introduced me to and I can’t remember his name! Not that I need to know, I just wanted to say thanks for the Haley shout-out. It started playing and I immediately started feeling warm fuzzy Haley-feelings. Thanks also for the cute card!

This past week we met with two new investigators right in a row that were completely opposite from each other. One was this older man who had stopped us on the street the day before. He was taking the lessons from the missionaries in 2002 (from a fat elder named Smith. Anybody know him?) but stopped for one reason or another. This guy, though, knows sooo much about Christian history and religion in general and he just went off for 30 minutes about the apostasy. I caught words like “John Calvin” and “Protestant” here and there, but mostly I didn’t understand hardly anything he said. I did, however, understand the part where he talked about how Christianity came to Mongolia in the 14th century and a bunch of Mongolians were baptized, but then nothing ever really came of it. It was really interesting to hear him talk and he was really excited to hear about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

Right after that we met with this lady who had been going to churches all the time when she lived in Korea, but she never felt comfortable with all their Hallelujah’s and how they made everyone go around shouting “Lord I’m a sinner!” She said it really frightened her, but that she felt she should go to church because she knew there was a God and that He loved her. After she moved back to Mongolian she said she went into the mountains and prayed for hours. Again she felt that God was there and that He loved her, but she also felt that she shouldn’t go to those other churches anymore. It was really wonderful to see and feel of her faith and her yearning for the truth. I just wanted to dive in and teach her all of the lessons at once, but I told myself to be patient and invited her to church.

In other cool investigator news, we went to meet with a family that a woman in our branch is trying to introduce to the gospel the other night. There were way too many of them all living in a single ger, but they seemed like a really loving family. As we were introducing ourselves and talking a little bit about the church one of their sons said that he used to be a lam and asked if that was a problem. Problem?! Heck no! That’s awesome! He stopped about five years ago because he didn’t feel like it was getting him anywhere. I hope this family pans out. They live on the top of this mountain where we already have three member families. I’m hoping to take the whole mountain before I leave Enkhtaivan.

My foot is perfectly fine. It’s so fine that I keep forgetting to tell you about it.

Quick report on the visit of Elder Earl C. Tingey this week: We had a sort of mini zone conference yesterday and he addressed all the missionaries. It was really cool. He’s also having a fireside on Saturday for all the church members in UB so maybe I’ll be able to give you a better report next week after everything is done.