Weekly Update - Another Good Week

Our Dear, Dear Family:

I guess we are having a Mongolian Indian summer now. The weather has been very pleasant with cool mornings and warm days. We have had a few rain showers during the week.

Linda really got a lot done on her family history teaching and projects this week; and she sent a very detailed report off to Hong Kong that had worried her much of the week. She is blessed with two exceptional assistants, one a dentist near the Church, the other the wife of a former district president, whose son, Tamir, lives in Provo.

My research in finding lost missionaries is progressing well. I have two returned missionary Sisters helping me and we are near completion of a record and search sheet for each of the returned missionaries in Mongolia. I will meet in the Ulaanbaatar District Branch Presidencies' training meeting on the 25th of this month and present each branch president a packet with a master list of all the missionaries called from his branch over the past fourteen years and a personal sheet for each. Then I will have him return a copy of the sheet to me with all the information he can find on the missionary. I know that we will get a lot of blank reports back, but then we will search other sources.

I interviewed members for my Public Affairs Council and Public Affairs Advisory Board during the week. I will be working with some very outstanding people, and many of them I have know for as long as fifteen years. One man is a documentary film-maker; a Sister is one of the foremost movie personalities and PR people in Mongolia; a Brother is a former minister in another church and very well connected in the city. Brother Purevsuren I trained in Utah in 1996. He heads the major environmental effort here and also works for the Millenium Fund, a large U.S. grant to help development in Mongolia. Chimgee will also work with us. She is the wife of the film-maker, Sumkhuu, and is a top official in Mongolia customs.

I enjoyed a very pleasant visit with the member of parliament from Bulgan Province (where I have worked most here) in the newly-renovated government headquarters. The interview was very pleasant; the building is even more beautiful than ever.

Bat-Erdene, and Elder I know at the MTC and who is studying at BYU-Idaho now leaves tomorrow to go back to Idaho without his wife. I tried for more than a week to help her get a visa (she is a very talented mental health doctor and time in the U.S. would help her with her work when she returned here) but a very hard-headed visa officer just could not see the big picture. We had dinner with Bat-Erdene and his wife at a Chinese restaurant on Friday night. It was very pleasant. Also, we were in the same branch with them this morning. He had his three younger brothers with him (two of them right out of the countryside and the youngest, about eight years old, was very, very shy).

My friend, Ganaa, also attended the branch and bore his testimony. He is not a member of the Church yet but has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. I also bore my testimony (in English this time; next time it will be in Mongolian). It was an enjoyable meeting.

Last night we enjoyed a very special evening with my good friend Jambaldorj and his wife. We helped his daughter attend Wasatch Academy in Mount Pleasant and she is not studying at Harvard. Jambaldorj has been appointed the first-ever ambassador to Australia. We talked over an elegant Japanese meal in the Kempinski Khan Hotel, just across the street from our apartment building. Jambaldorj told us that President Bush's entourage stayed at this hotel when Bush was in Mongolia about four years ago for a total of six hours. The bill at the hotel was over $2,000,000.

We are both in good health and getting better. We walk at least a mile and a half to and from our offices each day and sometimes make the trip again for an evening meeting.

We taught our first English classes this week, Tuesday and Thursday nights. We have about twenty students, most of them in the intermediate range. They are very enthusiastic and a lot of fun to be with.

We appreciate the letters we have received this week. Thank you.

Mother and Dad