Our First Week

Our Dear Family:

We have had a very busy first week here: orientation, moving into our apartment, meeting people, getting telephones, going to Church meetings, attending an all-Mongolia youth conference, seeing old friends, beginning our specific missionary responsibilities--family history for Linda; public affairs and reactivation of less-active returned missionaries. We also spoke at a fireside in President Anderson's home last night. It has been busy.

We have a very nice apartment on the ninth floor (with an elevator) of a relatively new building. We have one bedroom, a nice sitting and dining room, a modern kitchen and bathroom, and a balcony. This apartment, however, is only temporary. The couple we are replacing leave in about six weeks; and then after their apartment is refurbished, we will move there. It is an older apartment but is closer to the mission home and office. We have a large picture window facing west, so it gets very hot in the evenings.

Our beds were harder than pavement, so we first tried using comforters to make them comfortable. This did not work too well, so I searched the large open market and found two single deluxe air matresses. Now we sleep well.

It is still quite hot here and will not really cool down for another month or so. We walk to the mission office and other places not too far from our apartment and find it quite hot.

The food is very good. We can buy almost anything we can get in Utah, and there is a supermarket on the ground floor of our apartment building. Too, the other senior couples have had us to their apartments for dinner several nights already; and, we have three dinner invitations this week. We really are not starving.

We have had quite a bit of time with Josh and Kim. They love Mongolia and are doing very well here. They have been staying in the guest house of one of our friend's university and will move into their own apartment at the American School of Ulaanbaatar on Friday of this week. It is a nice, large apartment and is quite near the mountains just south of Ulaanbaatar.

The youth conference was especially impressive. The local leaders did most of the planning and implementation, and young people came from every branch (20 of them) in the country. Some rode for three days in old Russian vans. There were 368 youth at the conference and about forty leaders. They worked on a quilt service project; were taught various Gospel principles in small groups; and enjoyed a lot of group games, including Western line dancing.

We have enjoyed the photo and letter album immensely; and we have shared it with several friends already. Thanks to each of you for doing this for us.

Andrew: we will see Ganbat and his wife tonight. She leaves for two weeks in the U.S. tomorrow. Many of our friends met us at the airport, including Tuya, Sodnomdorj and Yanjin, Odnyam, Ariunaa, Segee (who made the painting of the house in Fremont and the two Mongolian figures on our mantle for us), and others.

Tamar: please read this to mother tomorrow when you see her and give her our love. We will call her as soon as we get our telephones in order. Also, we do not have internet in our apartment, so we will write as we can each week from our office (which will be ours early next week).

We love you.

Mother and Dad