October 12, 2007 - Companion's Temple Trip

Hello Everybody!

Welcome to the craziest P-day ever! My companion is leaving tomorrow with 13 other missionaries for Hong Kong to go to the temple for the first time. She had a interview with President Andersen this morning at 10:00 and when we got to the Bayanzurkh Building the other missionaries’ interviews were already over an hour behind. There was also a mini-transfer this morning so the Bayanzurkh was crawling with missionaries going here and there. Two new sets of couple missionaries have arrived, and they look completely overwhelmed and more than a little bit scared.

Anyway, we got interviews done with and picked up another sister missionary who is in from the khuduu to go on the temple trip. She’ll be going around with us until tomorrow night when they head for the airport. Now the missionaries are all headed to the supermarket with Gombo, the return missionary who will be their guide and translator on the trip and in the temple. We got a quick okay from the assistants for Sister Nergui and I to reunite for one glorious hour to be companions again and come sit at the internet while our companions prepare for their trip. I’m at a little café here in the shadow of the wrestler’s palace taking a bit of a breather and writing a little hello to you all. After the kiddies get back, we’ll be running around getting last minute clothes, taking Sister Battungalag’s stuff to our apartment, buying groceries, developing pictures, wreaking havoc all over this little UB town. I can’t wait for Conference tomorrow.

Conference! Yeah, usually the time lapse here is only one day but we’re a week behind in terms of goings on in the church, it seems. Don’t worry though, I already know the big news. Last Sunday at church we had just gotten out of sacrament meeting and were milling around a bit in the foyer. All of a sudden there’s a shout of triumph from the second floor balcony and I look up to see Elder Johnson with his fists in the air. “Eyring!” he yells, triumphantly. And that was how I found out. That saved me a week of waiting in suspense. I just hope the DVD’s they send this year are of a little bit better quality. Last year everything past the first hour of the Saturday morning session skipped every 10 seconds. It was okay though because Elders Moulton and Parker had had the bright idea to print all of conference off the internet the day before and they just read along and called out the words that got skipped over so it was almost like we didn’t miss a thing.

Last preparation day we had a wonderful celebration for our year mark. It almost felt like Thanksgiving or Christmas or something with all the family gathered round. We reviewed the year, brought up such classic MTC memories as “Cabbage Pants” and Elder Nielson’s nightmare about being a little bird. Ah, good times. Then after that Sister Khorloo and I went to the Bayanzurkh Building to meet with Sister Stroud about my companion’s family history. She has been working with her family via snail mail to get some information ready before her temple trip. After entering all the info in at the family history center my companion will be doing the work for 5 family members, including her mom who died about 4 years ago. And her father’s parents will be able to be sealed together. Basically it was really awesome.

After that we headed over to the old central building, the building that our branch meets in, and made cookies and buuz with the branch missionaries. The deal was that I was going to teach them to make cookies and they were going to teach me to make buuz but I ended up doing all the cookie stuff and they did all the buuz stuff and ne’er the twain did meet. So, we didn’t learn anything, but we ate a lot, and Turuu said that my cookies were “lag goe,” which pretty much means “tight.”

This past week we decided to give our poor tired branch missionaries a break and went with two older sisters in the branch. This one sister, Legjmaa, joined the church a long while ago (back in the 90’s) and sent almost all of her kids on missions. Last Sunday she had shared some “good news” about how she felt like a missionary while helping with the measel vaccine campaign the church just organized here in Mongolia. I decided she needed to experience some real missionary work firsthand. She is a really sweet funny old lady and I think we’re going to have to go with here a lot more from now on.

That’s all from the field. Hope all is well. If you want to know exactly yuunii tul the Book of Mormon was written, please read 2 Nephi 25:26. That’s the scripture we’re sharing with members we meet with this week, so I thought I might as well share it with you.