August 31, 2007 - Elder Tingey's Visit

[Sorry this is so late, I was out of town. Cheryl's mom]
Sain baitsgaana uu, manaikhaa!

Well, we have a baptism tonight. We were going to have two but Batzaya didn’t come to church the day after she passed her baptismal interview so we had to put her baptism off a week. Battsetseg decided to go on without her and set the way with her big sister example. It’s going to be a little rough for these two: their family is very much into Buddha and they are okay but not happy with Battsetseg and Batzaya joining a Christian church.

So, it’s transfer time again. Sister Delgermurun is leaving me and Enkhtaivan for the branch just to the west of us, Unur. As for my new companion, well, I don’t know who it is quite yet, but I’ll find out Saturday morning with the rest of the trainers. Ah! I’m trainer! How did this happen? I just barely got here (8 months ago)! This is going to be really difficult, but also a lot of fun, I think. If I train one of the new Mongolian sisters, they are so much more prepared to do this work than I ever was, and if I train the new American sister…English! Sweet English! I’ve already forgotten so much it might be a bit hard to communicate, but then that will help her Mongolian improve. Basically it’ll be good however it turns out.

Last week we had a great visit from Elder Earl C. Tingey of the Presidency of the Seventy. He met with all the missionaries for a little whipping-in-to-shape, go-get-‘em-tigers meeting, which really was quite inspiring. The focus of our mission right now is street contacts. There’s this whole non-proselyting law here in Mongolia that we have always followed but that has mostly served to give missionaries (myself included) an excuse to not try very hard to talk to people out on the streets. Our mission goal before President Andersen came was to talk to 15 people a week. I remember that being difficult, but now it just sounds so pitiful! About a month ago President Andersen changed the goal to 70 a week. It seemed near impossible at first, but now everyone’s getting the hang of it. Our street contacts are going up, so our new investigators are going up. Our new investigators are going up so now our progressing investigators are going up. Soon our investigators with a set baptismal date will be following, and after that comes more actual baptisms. It all starts with opening your mouth.

Last Saturday Elder Tingey spoke at a fireside for all church members at the central building here in UB. He and Sister Tingey spoke about the future of the church in Mongolia as a multi-generation family church. There are a handful of children now who have “grown-up in the church,” but for the most part everyone is a first generation member. Elder Tingey encouraged the members to marry within the church and raise a family together according to the gospel standards. He also spoke a lot about holding family home evening. Pretty much it was everything I knew the church members here needed to hear, so it was really great.

Happy BYU season to everyone who’s still into that kind of stuff. Aww heck, I am still into that stuff. I couldn’t quite comprehend how quickly my mission was going by until I told myself I only have two more semesters left on my mission. Time is flying by like an arrow. A really fast arrow. Yeah, like, an arrow that’s been shot by a wizened old Mongol nuudelchin across the grassy steppe, or something cool like that. Nuudelchin means “nomad,” by the way. It’s a really cool, serious word even though you pronounce it like “noodle-chin,” which sounds like a playground insult.

Hope all y’all are healthy and happy.