February 1, 2008 - Snow Holiday, Wrestling & Work

[Note: Cheryl wrote this email on Friday, Feb. 1, but internet problems delayed her sending it until Monday, Feb 4.]

Happy Groundhog’s Day tomorrow! Word to the wise: if you think you’re going to do something cute and celebrate the holiday by watching the Bill Murray movie, I can tell you from experience that every single copy of the movie has already been checked out of Blockbuster and fished out of the $2.99 movie bin at Wal-Mart.

Last Saturday we had our big Snow Holiday activity with the branch. When it’s this cold outside, you’d think the one thing on people’s mind would be to huddle up and stay inside, but that’s boring. Mongolians don’t let little things like -30 degree weather keep them from picnicking in the mountains. We didn’t go anywhere far away. We just met at the church and then walked together through the neighborhood and up into the mountains and then found ourselves a little valley to picnic in.

We built a fire for the wusses and then the rest of us went sledding down the mountainside. Oh…my…goodness it was crazy. I only pressed my luck once going down, and then let everyone else have a turn. It was too much work walking back up anyway, but it was so much fun!

After that they pulled out a rope and started laying down the circle for some wrestling. I immediately remembered the Snow Holiday last year in Khailaast branch when Elder Hull got his shoulder dislocated (manai Mongolchuud don’t mess around when they wrestle) and was all ready to pull the Sister Missionary Dignity Card and say I wouldn’t be participating. Then I heard Elder Gantugs yell, “Aaaaaaaaand first up in the ladies round: Sisters Bayarmaa and Johnson!” and before I knew it Sister Bayarmaa and I bariltsaj baisan [were wrestling].

You needn’t worry about the outcome of the wrestling because in this episode of the epic, Sister Shorty Goes Mongo, there's a happy ending. Mongolians are little, y’all, and the females are even littler. After I calmly pushed the first three girlies out of the ring, they decided to spare the rest further embarrassment and declared me the winner.

Later we had a rope pull, some races up and down the mountain, and then drank some boiled salted milk. The worst part was when the Elders started to “wash” people, which is the Mongolian term for grabbing a handful of snow and wiping it all over somebody’s face. I got washed 4 times in all, and eventually Sister Bayarmaa and I had to stand back to back to protect each other from approaching attackers.

Elder Gantugs “washed” my glasses, and the snow instantly froze to my glasses, not to mention my FACE. There was no way to scrape it off, and I didn’t want to melt it over the fire for fear that the lenses would snap in half. My mom said the glasses store clerk said to avoid extremes in temperature (oops!), so I just braved the rest of the day without glasses.

I took all kinds of cool pictures, but I can’t find my camera cord right now so…sorry. No dice.

Burentsetseg got baptized!!! Yay! Now she and her sister Burensaikhan are gonna tear up Selenge together. Burensaikhan is the Sunday School teacher, and Burentsetseg just got called to be the youth Sunday School teacher. I’m really excited for the both of them.

The missionaries are also taking part in a membership audit program. They’re having the missionaries here meet with every single member in Mongolia and check their record information. We’ve had several great experiences this past week meeting with inactive members who had kind of fallen through the cracks. We got to go into the high school dorms for students whose parents don’t live right in town to check on a member girl who lived there. It turns out she is a student in my English class, but she hadn’t been to church for a long time and didn’t say anything to Sister Bayarmaa or me about being a member.

This next week we have Zone Conference in Darkhan! No matter what happens I’m zaaval getting a picture of a camel! After that, it’s Tsagaan Sar! [Mongolian New Year] After that, there’s a transfer! I can’t decide if I want to go back to the city or stick around here for my last three months. Luckily it’s not my decision. I’ll let you know when I know.

Keep up the good work. It’s starting to get warmer around here…

Learning about the Death of Pres. Hinckley
On Monday afternoon, Jan 28, Sister Bayarmaa and I were at home studying when we got a call from our district leader. My companion picked up the phone, and all she kept saying was, “Tiiiiiim uu? Tiiiim uu?” (“Reeeeally? Reeeaally?) in serious tones, so I knew something big was up. I started thinking about the branch members or one of the missionaries and hoped they were all alright. Then Sister Bayarmaa told me to sit down and not to cry. She told me that President Andersen had just called the zone leaders who had just called our district leader to let them know that President Gordon B. Hinckley had died. We just sat there for a couple of minutes sniffling, and then we knelt down and said a prayer of thanks for President Hinckley and all that he had done. It was sad, but very peaceful. Now that I think about it we pretty much found out right away, because Monday afternoon in Mongolia would be the middle of the night in Utah. Thank goodness for phones.