March 14, 2008 - Eyeballs and All

Sain uu!

Last Friday I fulfilled another item on my Things You Gotta Do to Have a Jinkhene Mongol Experience: sheep head! I ate a sheep head! I’ve been waiting my whole mission for a branch member to invite me over for some, and the one time somebody did, I was transferred the next week. It didn’t look like anything was going to happen for me, but then suddenly, they started selling pre-torched, pre-boiled, ready-to-eat sheep heads at the zakh! Jubilation!

We missionaries decided to grab a couple and make a P-day of it. So last Friday Sister Oyunbat and I showed up at the church with our utensils and some grape Fanta. Elder Humphries and his mini-missionary brought ice cream. The other two elders brought the heads. Of course for the first ten minutes, we took turns trying to come up with the grossest pictures we could take. And then we finally started eating.

I was glad to split a head with Sister Oyunbat. She took charge of the knife and hacked off a nice slice of cheek for me to try. It was so good! Next I ate the tongue, and then the roof of the mouth, which is supposed to make you more creative. It was really weird, but also really good. My favorite part was when Elder Hardman asked, “Sister Johnson, two years ago would you ever have imagined yourself saying ‘Hey, the tongue’s not bad?’”

I was really surprised and proud of myself for being able to eat everything so far. And then Altanginj stuck his finger in the eye socket, popped out the eyeball, removed the iris and said, “Now you gotta eat this!” I paused for a second, and then I replied, “A’ight.” Once again, not that bad! It was so not-that-bad that I up and ate the other one as well.

I don’t know if I can come home after this. I might just be too weird now.

I don’t think I have any hopes of a quiet, low-key birthday [March 16]. The missionaries ugaacaa medej baisan, and now they keep announcing it at activities. I don’t think there’s a single branch member who doesn’t know, and that means all of Selenge also knows by now. Gotta love small town life. Oh, well. Last year my birthday was a little different because it was on the preparation day before a big transfer. We had a cool picture taken as a district in traditional Mongolian clothes, went out to eat, and bought new jackets. The whole time I was thinking about my new companion. I was scared out of my mind to be with Sister Nergui, but she ended up being my favorite companion.

Work is really picking up for the Selenge sisters. We’re teaching a deaf guy whose wife is a member and also deaf. Some of the branch missionaries know Mongolian sign language, but so far they have been busy every time we go to meet with them. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this mission thing, it’s that there is so much more to communicating than words. It’s going to go a little slower because he can’t read, but his wife can and she reads our messages and translates into sign language. I’m also picking it up pretty quickly. Mongolian sign language… Is it a stretch to say I’m probably not going to find a use for it after the mission? Ah, who cares? I’m here now so I’m going to learn it.