Our dear, dear Family:
Josh and Kim came to our apartment after our Church meetings and we talked and had dinner together. So, I did not get the letter to you written on Sunday as planned. It is now 4:15 p.m. on Monday, and I have been trying all day to write to you. We never lack for something to keep us busy here.
The past week has been very good but very busy (to a point, I guess busy is good; to a point).
We appreciate the e-mails we have received from you. Thanks to all of you who helped with the work on the house in Fremont. Especially, thanks to you, Les, for spearheading this and doing so much of the work yourself. We did receive several pictures from Tamar and Joe. The work and cleaning on the house look outstanding. Again, thank you. Now, we can hardly wait to get home to enjoy it (can you believe, though, that we have been here already three months?).
President Anderson has had our employment missionaries teaching a one-day seminar to all missionaries when they are released mostly about finding work when they get home. They have also taught about marriage and a bit about staying active. I have been assigned to teach the newly-released missionaries Gospel topics that will help them adjust to their release and stay strong and be leaders in the Church. I taught my first group on Monday and it went very well. I will meet with the ones who live in and near Ulaanbaatar each Monday evening for the next three weeks, and then once a month for the next five months. For those outside Ulaanbaatar, I will keep in touch by telephone and e-mail and travel to their branches as possible (some are a day's drive or more from here). I do think this will help us in keeping returned missionaries active.
After weeks of preparation, we had our annual returned missionary conference on Saturday. We had a meeting in the morning, lunch here at the headquarters building, Gospel workshops in the afternoon, and then a party and dance in the evening. I spoke on repentance in the meeting; President Andersen spoke on dating and marriage. We informed the returned missionaries that we will have two returned missionary trips to the Hong Kong temple next year, one in June the other in November. Some of the missionaries have not been to the Temple yet; others who have married since their mission have not been sealed in the temple. Linda will help them to not only get prepared themselves but prepare to do Temple Work for their parents, grandparents, etc. I also challenged every missionary to help reactivate at least one inactive missionary during the coming year. There are 656 returned missionaries called from Mongolia (many went back to the U.S. after their missions or are in other countries and we are trying to find all of them). We did have about 150 at the Conference.
On Tuesday, President Andersen and I had lunch with Amarjargal (I wrote about him earlier: he has been prime minister of Mongolia, foreign minister, and is now a member of parliament). Amarjargal heads the committee on finance and economics in parliament; President Andersen has been an international financial and business expert in Hong Kong for twenty-five year. They had a good talk together, and President Andersen made some suggestions about what can be done to strengthen the economy here. He also offered to help parliament with economic and financial concerns. I feel a lot of good can come from this meeting.
During the week I wrote an article for the Church News entitled "Mongolian Church in the Wilderness" about the little group meeting at the mine in the Gobi, and I selected a few of the pictures I took to accompany the article. President Andersen approved its being sent, so I will get it off soon. Did you see the article in the Church News about your All-Mongolia youth conference? t was quite good. But, because of this coverage of Mongolia I do not know how soon my article might be published.
I have also been planning our trip to the branches north of Ulaanbaatar: Darkhan I, Darkhan II, Zuunhara, Erdenet, and Selenge. I will visit all of them and spend some time with their leaders. Linda will teach family history to their specialists. It will be a lot of driving, but we have a fairly new Land Cruiser to drive, so it should not be too bad. I will tell you more about the trip next week. We return home on Sunday.
Many of us have been reading about Curtis Johnson's battle to get a new liver; I have also had that challenge here: a young mother came to my office just on the chance that our being Christian might mean we would help her son, who is in a hospital in Hohot, Inner Mongolia, for a new liver. I gave her all I could afford right now, and her son had had the transplant but is not getting the nutrition and medication he need. I will help more from our money for next month. And some money from a small "consolation" payment I will get from Linda's phen-phen case. China charges even more than the U.S.-- $63,000. This couple have sold everything they own, including their apartment and their cell phone to help.
Today we had lunch with one of Linda's assistants, Dashka, and her family. Her husband, Enkhtuvshkin, was the first member of the Church here. He was baptized in Germany and then came back home. They have a son in Provo, a daughter who just came back for a break from her studies in BYU-Hawaii, another returned missionary son, and three younger daughters. We had a very nice lunch in their ger on the outskirts of the city.
We are both in good health, but Linda still tires easily. I am making certain the she does not overdo.
The weather is not as bad as expected. The streets and sidewalks are clear of ice and the days are sunny. Morning temperatures are sometimes below twenty degrees but well above freezing in the afternoons.
We love you; we miss all of you very much.
Dad
Monday, October 27, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Letter from Grandma - "Our Life in Mongolia"
Dearest Family,
Life here is much busier than I thought it would be, but we're loving it. Last week we flew to the Gobi and spent 3 days with the saints down there - all 5 of them. It was a wonderful experience!! They are such great people. They work 56 days straight - 12-14 hour days, and then 14 days off. I don't know how they do it - most are young, of course. Next weekend we will drive to Darhan and teach. I will meet with the family history director there who is the District President's wife. She came to UB for our last training meeting. Next week we have a member of the Asia Area FH coming to UB. We will go with him to the Archives and hopefully he can advise us on some equipment requests from Hong Kong and give us advice. We've ordered a large backup drive to store all the FH records on. I'm sure he can suggest the best storage organization. All of the Mongolian Genealogical Records are stored in this office. Most branches don't even have computers. We prepare all the names for the temple on PAF and then email them to the HK Temple. We are going to fill out request forms to establish at least 2 new FH centers in the Mission at Darhan and Erdenet.
Hope all of you and yours are well. Dad's room is in the basement and it got flooded with gray water for the second time this year. It really stinks and he was concerned about black mold so since he couldn't find alcohol, he went out and bought two bottles of vodka and sprayed the room to kill the mold. Things are sometimes even funny here. The District President came in and took the rest of the Vodka he was going to spray again tomorrow to spray his room.
Cooking here is another story. Dad somehow got a large wooden box and some insulation from a shipment that came to the Service Center where we work. We are using these and several old blankets we've scrounged to store vegetables on our open patio out our bedroom door. We bought carrots, beets, potatoes cabbage (red and green), onions and garlic. I bought a combination white rice, brown rice, slow cooker (3 hours only) and then keeps your food warm (I sometimes reset it for another 3 hours if I am home and it needs to cook longer), congee (I'm cooking Cantonese juk tonight for tomorrow am, and a steamer. There is no such thing as a crock pot here - this is the closest thing I could find. I've made borsch, chilli, stew, lima beans, etc. in it. It's so nice to come home to a hot meal.
It has turned very cold here now. There is a little snow on the ground and the wind is fierce. I have several layers on today. Dad wore his sheepskin coat and a mink Russian style hat that he bought and some large leather lined gloves. He looked warm. I haven't started to wear my fur coat, but I will soon.
I am teaching English 2 times a week and Malan teaches 2 classes also. We teach 1 hour and 45 minute classes. I do the preparation of the lessons and Dad uses them also. I found a great on-line source: esl-lilbrary.com. They have lesson plans and masters to duplicate. The students seem to really enjoy them. My class is mixed abilities. Some are very advanced and some just barely understand. There are usually 42 in my classes.
We are also going to be assigned the responsibility to oversee some missionaries apartments and assigned to a branch to help. We keep VERY busy.
Our walk to the Service Center is nice. I am concerned how it will be when it is just a sheet of ice all the way, though. So far the boots I bought are working just great. They have really good tread on them and keep my feet really warm.
We sleep on air mattresses on our single beds we have pushed together. We sleep very comfortably. Our apartment is plenty warm. Dad learned how to adjust the temperature, so it is much more comfortable now.
It is so good to read your emails. Thank you all for keeping in touch. You are in our hearts and minds constantly.
Love Eternally,
Your mother, Linda
Life here is much busier than I thought it would be, but we're loving it. Last week we flew to the Gobi and spent 3 days with the saints down there - all 5 of them. It was a wonderful experience!! They are such great people. They work 56 days straight - 12-14 hour days, and then 14 days off. I don't know how they do it - most are young, of course. Next weekend we will drive to Darhan and teach. I will meet with the family history director there who is the District President's wife. She came to UB for our last training meeting. Next week we have a member of the Asia Area FH coming to UB. We will go with him to the Archives and hopefully he can advise us on some equipment requests from Hong Kong and give us advice. We've ordered a large backup drive to store all the FH records on. I'm sure he can suggest the best storage organization. All of the Mongolian Genealogical Records are stored in this office. Most branches don't even have computers. We prepare all the names for the temple on PAF and then email them to the HK Temple. We are going to fill out request forms to establish at least 2 new FH centers in the Mission at Darhan and Erdenet.
Hope all of you and yours are well. Dad's room is in the basement and it got flooded with gray water for the second time this year. It really stinks and he was concerned about black mold so since he couldn't find alcohol, he went out and bought two bottles of vodka and sprayed the room to kill the mold. Things are sometimes even funny here. The District President came in and took the rest of the Vodka he was going to spray again tomorrow to spray his room.
Cooking here is another story. Dad somehow got a large wooden box and some insulation from a shipment that came to the Service Center where we work. We are using these and several old blankets we've scrounged to store vegetables on our open patio out our bedroom door. We bought carrots, beets, potatoes cabbage (red and green), onions and garlic. I bought a combination white rice, brown rice, slow cooker (3 hours only) and then keeps your food warm (I sometimes reset it for another 3 hours if I am home and it needs to cook longer), congee (I'm cooking Cantonese juk tonight for tomorrow am, and a steamer. There is no such thing as a crock pot here - this is the closest thing I could find. I've made borsch, chilli, stew, lima beans, etc. in it. It's so nice to come home to a hot meal.
It has turned very cold here now. There is a little snow on the ground and the wind is fierce. I have several layers on today. Dad wore his sheepskin coat and a mink Russian style hat that he bought and some large leather lined gloves. He looked warm. I haven't started to wear my fur coat, but I will soon.
I am teaching English 2 times a week and Malan teaches 2 classes also. We teach 1 hour and 45 minute classes. I do the preparation of the lessons and Dad uses them also. I found a great on-line source: esl-lilbrary.com. They have lesson plans and masters to duplicate. The students seem to really enjoy them. My class is mixed abilities. Some are very advanced and some just barely understand. There are usually 42 in my classes.
We are also going to be assigned the responsibility to oversee some missionaries apartments and assigned to a branch to help. We keep VERY busy.
Our walk to the Service Center is nice. I am concerned how it will be when it is just a sheet of ice all the way, though. So far the boots I bought are working just great. They have really good tread on them and keep my feet really warm.
We sleep on air mattresses on our single beds we have pushed together. We sleep very comfortably. Our apartment is plenty warm. Dad learned how to adjust the temperature, so it is much more comfortable now.
It is so good to read your emails. Thank you all for keeping in touch. You are in our hearts and minds constantly.
Love Eternally,
Your mother, Linda
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A Week to Remember
Our Dear, Dear Family:
We did make it back from the Gobi alive, arriving in Ulaanbaatar just before noon today. The trip by plane is not bad: 560 km, less than one and one-half hours.
We left our apartment at 4:30 a.m. Friday morning to get to the Chinggis Khan Airport for a 7:00 a.m. departure. The mining company, Ivanhoe Mines, had arranged for us to travel on their charter flight which flies their workers back and forth from the mines for time at home. Most of the workers work 56 days at the mines and then have two weeks at home. There are about 600 workers there now, 100 of them day workers from the local area.
The assistant to the vice president in charge of this mine, Bayarmaa, and the leader of our Church group there, Aibek, met us at the company air strip. Bayarmaa was assigned to be with us all of the time; Aibek and other members joined us as they could. Bayarmaa is married to a Canadian (Ivanhoe Mines is based in Canada); she spent one year in medical school here and then graduated from the National University of Mongolia with a law degree. She was a very pleasant and delightful person to be with.
There are about twenty members of the Church working at the mines (the Mongolian name is Oyu Tolgoi, which means Turquoise Hill), but maybe half of them are less active and some actually avoided any contact with us. We met with up to ten of the members in three meetings: an informal meeting in our apartment (a modular studio apartment that was very comfortable); a fireside on Saturday night; and Sacrament Meeting on Sunday night. Linda and I both spoke in the fireside and the sacrament meeting. The chapel there is a ger where two returned missionaries who married two or three years ago live. The meetings were very spiritual and pleasant. We ate all of our meals in the company cafeteria, together with our members, the miners, translators, and administrators. We became good friends with the chef, who is French. One of his assistants is from India, another from north China. The meals were excellent. The cook being French, he even prepared croissants, chocolate eclairs, home-made ice cream, and French bread. They had two lines: one serving Mongolian food, the other European.
During working hours, when we could not be with the members, Bayarmaa took us sightseeing. We visited the Soum center (a soum is like a county in Utah) named Khan Bogd. It was very different from the many others I have visited: there were new brick homes and quite a number of Land Cruisers. Bayarmaa told us that the people of this town surface mine gold in the nearby canyon. We drove up the hill beside the canyon and walked to the edge to see some very spectacular rock formations and old cottonwoods.
Bayarmaa lived in the Gobi for twenty-eight years. Her first trip out of the desert was when she was eighteen years old. Her family had raised camels and other livestock, so she was able to tell us a lot about life in the Gobi. We saw no green grass anywhere, but the camels, horses, cows, sheep, and goats were fatter than the animals I see on green pastures here. There was a carpet of dried grass and plants in the area we traveled, and Bayarmaa said it was very nutritious for animals. The only water we saw other than the wells at the mine site was in a pool in a canyon at the edge of a rocky range of hills. It was a very beautiful spot with turquoise-colored water in a pool forty feet across and old gnarled cottonwoods among the huge rocks.
We also stopped early one morning at the ger of a camel herder. He had about twenty-five young camels tethered near his ger and we could see the mothers in the distance. At almost exactly 10:30 the huge mother camels came trotting toward the ger and were soon feeding their babies. We went out among the herd and quite enjoyed watching and hearing them. The herder said that he sold the male camels and sometimes the younger ones. A large camel would bring about $1,000.
In the afternoon we drove into a more remote area with huge ledges, not unlike the ones above Fremont. Here we visited the site of a Buddhist temple constructed in the early 1800's. The Russians destroyed it in about 1940. The walls of what had been quite a large complex are still standing; and the CEO of Ivanhoe Mines donated $130,000 to build a huge stupa eight smaller stupas surrounding it in round circles, the whole things shaped like a lotus. The main stupa was painted brilliant white, with a gold Buddhist lotus on the tip of the spire. There is a golden, seated Buddha inside the stupa; and the inside and the eaves are decorated in rainbow colors, similar the inside wood of our ger.
All in all, this was quite a trip. I will try to send a few photos.
This week we met with two old friends, both of whom I trained in Utah: Amarjargal, former prime minister and foreign minister, and now a member of parliament; and Batayev, who just retired as chief of the Mongolia Police Academy. It was very pleasant seeing them again. Amarjargal treated us to Indian food in a luxury hotel near the parliament building; Batayev treated us to a very nice European lunch at a hotel owned by his daughter.
Linda has taught family history to a lot of people during the past week; I have gotten a lot done on our lost missionary search.
The weather here is still surprisingly warm; in the Gobi it was almost like summer in Utah.
We are both in good health. Linda, however, is quite tired today from the rigors of the trip. She stayed home and I came directly to my office.
This afternoon I taught the first seminar for Mongolian missionaries just being released from their missions. I taught almost four hours about skills for adjusting to their release and for their futures: the Church, education, family, work, etc. It was enjoyable. I will meet with them weekly for the next three weeks and then monthly for the following five months. In this way we hope we can help them get well settled in their lives and stay active in the Church.
Each Monday night we have a fireside in the mission home for all returned missionaries who would like to come. I must leave now to be with them.
We love you.
Grandpa and Grandma Jackson
We did make it back from the Gobi alive, arriving in Ulaanbaatar just before noon today. The trip by plane is not bad: 560 km, less than one and one-half hours.
We left our apartment at 4:30 a.m. Friday morning to get to the Chinggis Khan Airport for a 7:00 a.m. departure. The mining company, Ivanhoe Mines, had arranged for us to travel on their charter flight which flies their workers back and forth from the mines for time at home. Most of the workers work 56 days at the mines and then have two weeks at home. There are about 600 workers there now, 100 of them day workers from the local area.
The assistant to the vice president in charge of this mine, Bayarmaa, and the leader of our Church group there, Aibek, met us at the company air strip. Bayarmaa was assigned to be with us all of the time; Aibek and other members joined us as they could. Bayarmaa is married to a Canadian (Ivanhoe Mines is based in Canada); she spent one year in medical school here and then graduated from the National University of Mongolia with a law degree. She was a very pleasant and delightful person to be with.
There are about twenty members of the Church working at the mines (the Mongolian name is Oyu Tolgoi, which means Turquoise Hill), but maybe half of them are less active and some actually avoided any contact with us. We met with up to ten of the members in three meetings: an informal meeting in our apartment (a modular studio apartment that was very comfortable); a fireside on Saturday night; and Sacrament Meeting on Sunday night. Linda and I both spoke in the fireside and the sacrament meeting. The chapel there is a ger where two returned missionaries who married two or three years ago live. The meetings were very spiritual and pleasant. We ate all of our meals in the company cafeteria, together with our members, the miners, translators, and administrators. We became good friends with the chef, who is French. One of his assistants is from India, another from north China. The meals were excellent. The cook being French, he even prepared croissants, chocolate eclairs, home-made ice cream, and French bread. They had two lines: one serving Mongolian food, the other European.
During working hours, when we could not be with the members, Bayarmaa took us sightseeing. We visited the Soum center (a soum is like a county in Utah) named Khan Bogd. It was very different from the many others I have visited: there were new brick homes and quite a number of Land Cruisers. Bayarmaa told us that the people of this town surface mine gold in the nearby canyon. We drove up the hill beside the canyon and walked to the edge to see some very spectacular rock formations and old cottonwoods.
Bayarmaa lived in the Gobi for twenty-eight years. Her first trip out of the desert was when she was eighteen years old. Her family had raised camels and other livestock, so she was able to tell us a lot about life in the Gobi. We saw no green grass anywhere, but the camels, horses, cows, sheep, and goats were fatter than the animals I see on green pastures here. There was a carpet of dried grass and plants in the area we traveled, and Bayarmaa said it was very nutritious for animals. The only water we saw other than the wells at the mine site was in a pool in a canyon at the edge of a rocky range of hills. It was a very beautiful spot with turquoise-colored water in a pool forty feet across and old gnarled cottonwoods among the huge rocks.
We also stopped early one morning at the ger of a camel herder. He had about twenty-five young camels tethered near his ger and we could see the mothers in the distance. At almost exactly 10:30 the huge mother camels came trotting toward the ger and were soon feeding their babies. We went out among the herd and quite enjoyed watching and hearing them. The herder said that he sold the male camels and sometimes the younger ones. A large camel would bring about $1,000.
In the afternoon we drove into a more remote area with huge ledges, not unlike the ones above Fremont. Here we visited the site of a Buddhist temple constructed in the early 1800's. The Russians destroyed it in about 1940. The walls of what had been quite a large complex are still standing; and the CEO of Ivanhoe Mines donated $130,000 to build a huge stupa eight smaller stupas surrounding it in round circles, the whole things shaped like a lotus. The main stupa was painted brilliant white, with a gold Buddhist lotus on the tip of the spire. There is a golden, seated Buddha inside the stupa; and the inside and the eaves are decorated in rainbow colors, similar the inside wood of our ger.
All in all, this was quite a trip. I will try to send a few photos.
This week we met with two old friends, both of whom I trained in Utah: Amarjargal, former prime minister and foreign minister, and now a member of parliament; and Batayev, who just retired as chief of the Mongolia Police Academy. It was very pleasant seeing them again. Amarjargal treated us to Indian food in a luxury hotel near the parliament building; Batayev treated us to a very nice European lunch at a hotel owned by his daughter.
Linda has taught family history to a lot of people during the past week; I have gotten a lot done on our lost missionary search.
The weather here is still surprisingly warm; in the Gobi it was almost like summer in Utah.
We are both in good health. Linda, however, is quite tired today from the rigors of the trip. She stayed home and I came directly to my office.
This afternoon I taught the first seminar for Mongolian missionaries just being released from their missions. I taught almost four hours about skills for adjusting to their release and for their futures: the Church, education, family, work, etc. It was enjoyable. I will meet with them weekly for the next three weeks and then monthly for the following five months. In this way we hope we can help them get well settled in their lives and stay active in the Church.
Each Monday night we have a fireside in the mission home for all returned missionaries who would like to come. I must leave now to be with them.
We love you.
Grandpa and Grandma Jackson
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Conference Here Too
Our Dear, Dear Family:
Yesterday and today we have enjoyed General Conference on DVD recorded in Salt Lake and sent to us. It has been a beautiful experience. I do not recall a Priesthood meeting that was more inspiring. Especially the talks by the First Presidency were exceptional. The senior couples and other English-speaking members here met at the mission home for the conference; and, last night we went together for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Between sessions today we had pot-luck. It was a good meal. But, most of all Conference lifted us up so very much.
Andrew called us this morning and told us of his week in Fremont. It was so good to hear his voice and to share that experience by telephone. As much as we love the work here, we do miss all of you very much and do miss both Springville and Fremont a lot.
Les, Tamar, Joshua, Amanda, and Aspen are going to Fremont this week to put the new windows in. The cost will be about $2,000. We hope that all of the family can contribute toward this amount. We can pay some, of course, but our expenses here are much more than we had anticipated.
Tamar called and we talked about Becki's situation. Thank you, Tamar, for you concern for her and help for her and us. And, Becki, keep in touch. In times like this, a good support system is critical.
The weather here so far is unbelievably warm. The mornings are barely down to freezing; the afternoons are in the high fifties. We know, though, that the cold is coming. Ulaanbaatar ordinarily does not get a lot of snow, the cold will be extreme.
Thursday afternoon one of the first college presidents I brought to Utah for training in 1996 unexpectedly walked into my office and talked for hours. He repeated told me how much he appreciates and how much he has used what we taught him in Utah and followed up in sessions here. I taught Steven Covey's "Seven Habits" the first time ever at his college in 1996. He wants me to teach them at his college again and also lecture to his graduate students. Most gratifying was his statement that because some of his graduates had been dishonest in their jobs, he had changed the emphasis in many of his classes, teaching honesty and ethics (based in part on Covey's book). I have also learned that the book I helped write on the U.S. higher education system is still the "bible" for the colleges and universities here; and the accreditation system I helped establish is functioning very well. This president was on the commission for five years and is an advisor for it now. Their members travel to the U.S. to meet with accreditation commissions there to improve their performance here.
We continue to find and begin the re-activation of returned missionaries. This is most pleasant and meaningful. I have to do a lot of follow-up and training because the branch leaders are not experienced enough yet to understand and fully appreciate what we are trying to do. And, then there is the Mongolian attitude of no urgency, no follow-up (generally speaking).
It seems our challenges with the government are quite well settled down. We have the visas for the next group of missionaries, who will arrive here in a couple of weeks and our Church registration seems solid now.
I bought a two- or three-month supply of potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions this week and have created a "root cellar" on our balcony with a large wooden box and lot of insulation. We also have a good supply of canned and dried foods inside the apartment. We even have a fair amount of filtered water we have stored in plastic one-liter grapefruit juice bottles we have enjoyed the juice from.
On Thursday night we enjoyed dinner at the apartment of Brother Richard Huei, a German brother who was baptized forty years ago and at one time even lived in Salt Lake. He found us here and has now received the Aaronic and Melchizidek Priesthood. He and his son are in Mongolia doing several kinds of business. He is an attorney and an international investment banker as well. I have thought for years of finding support to build low-cost housing here to sell to people who now live in gers on the outskirts of the city. In the winter, the coal they burn for heat buries the Ulaanbaatar valley in heavy smoke. Brother Huei is now moving ahead on this project and we reviewed his plans before dinner Thursday evening. His units will each have twenty apartments. The apartments will sell for about US$10,000. They will have solar heat and light. The walls will be built with a special concrete and styrofoam mixture that will be pressed in a German-made press. The blocks will resemble "lagos" and will fit very tightly and very very insulated.
Batayev, recently-retired chief of the Mongolia Police Academy, whom I trained in Utah in the late '90's, and who introduce us to the legal advisor to the Mongolian president, called Friday morning and said he was coming to pick us up at 1:30. He did not say for what, but when he came, he to us to the headquarters of a large congolomorate of companies he directs. They have meat-packing plants and other livestock product companies and also have the only food testing lab in Mongolia. We toured his lab with him. It was most impressive, almost like something we would see in the U.S. He then took us to his daughter's small hotel where we had an excellent late lunch.
Batayev is a very special man. I gave him a Book of Mormon when he was in Utah, and he has read it. He also told me that one night he was driving on a rough back-country road and picked up two young men who were trying to get home. He recognized them as our missionaries from their badges (I had introduced missionaries to him before). He took them to their apartment; and when he went to his car the next morning he found the Book of Mormon and a Church pamphlet in the back of his car. His good impression of he Church will continue to be very helpful to us here.
I visited the headquarters of the Ivanhoe Mines Company (a large Canadian company that manages a number of smaller mining companies in the Gobi Desert) to get permission to visit their site next weekend to meet with members of the Church who work there. Many of them are returned missionaries. I have communicated with them by e-mail; they are very anxious for us to visit them, and so are we.
Joshua and Kim continue to do very well. Josh is proving to be a very good teacher at the American School and enjoys it a lot. They are here now and will have dinner with Bother Huei, his fiancee, and us.
We love you. Please do write. And, please visit Mother. She is so very lonely. I do call her at least once a week, but she does need family visitors.
We love you.
Mother and Dad
Yesterday and today we have enjoyed General Conference on DVD recorded in Salt Lake and sent to us. It has been a beautiful experience. I do not recall a Priesthood meeting that was more inspiring. Especially the talks by the First Presidency were exceptional. The senior couples and other English-speaking members here met at the mission home for the conference; and, last night we went together for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Between sessions today we had pot-luck. It was a good meal. But, most of all Conference lifted us up so very much.
Andrew called us this morning and told us of his week in Fremont. It was so good to hear his voice and to share that experience by telephone. As much as we love the work here, we do miss all of you very much and do miss both Springville and Fremont a lot.
Les, Tamar, Joshua, Amanda, and Aspen are going to Fremont this week to put the new windows in. The cost will be about $2,000. We hope that all of the family can contribute toward this amount. We can pay some, of course, but our expenses here are much more than we had anticipated.
Tamar called and we talked about Becki's situation. Thank you, Tamar, for you concern for her and help for her and us. And, Becki, keep in touch. In times like this, a good support system is critical.
The weather here so far is unbelievably warm. The mornings are barely down to freezing; the afternoons are in the high fifties. We know, though, that the cold is coming. Ulaanbaatar ordinarily does not get a lot of snow, the cold will be extreme.
Thursday afternoon one of the first college presidents I brought to Utah for training in 1996 unexpectedly walked into my office and talked for hours. He repeated told me how much he appreciates and how much he has used what we taught him in Utah and followed up in sessions here. I taught Steven Covey's "Seven Habits" the first time ever at his college in 1996. He wants me to teach them at his college again and also lecture to his graduate students. Most gratifying was his statement that because some of his graduates had been dishonest in their jobs, he had changed the emphasis in many of his classes, teaching honesty and ethics (based in part on Covey's book). I have also learned that the book I helped write on the U.S. higher education system is still the "bible" for the colleges and universities here; and the accreditation system I helped establish is functioning very well. This president was on the commission for five years and is an advisor for it now. Their members travel to the U.S. to meet with accreditation commissions there to improve their performance here.
We continue to find and begin the re-activation of returned missionaries. This is most pleasant and meaningful. I have to do a lot of follow-up and training because the branch leaders are not experienced enough yet to understand and fully appreciate what we are trying to do. And, then there is the Mongolian attitude of no urgency, no follow-up (generally speaking).
It seems our challenges with the government are quite well settled down. We have the visas for the next group of missionaries, who will arrive here in a couple of weeks and our Church registration seems solid now.
I bought a two- or three-month supply of potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions this week and have created a "root cellar" on our balcony with a large wooden box and lot of insulation. We also have a good supply of canned and dried foods inside the apartment. We even have a fair amount of filtered water we have stored in plastic one-liter grapefruit juice bottles we have enjoyed the juice from.
On Thursday night we enjoyed dinner at the apartment of Brother Richard Huei, a German brother who was baptized forty years ago and at one time even lived in Salt Lake. He found us here and has now received the Aaronic and Melchizidek Priesthood. He and his son are in Mongolia doing several kinds of business. He is an attorney and an international investment banker as well. I have thought for years of finding support to build low-cost housing here to sell to people who now live in gers on the outskirts of the city. In the winter, the coal they burn for heat buries the Ulaanbaatar valley in heavy smoke. Brother Huei is now moving ahead on this project and we reviewed his plans before dinner Thursday evening. His units will each have twenty apartments. The apartments will sell for about US$10,000. They will have solar heat and light. The walls will be built with a special concrete and styrofoam mixture that will be pressed in a German-made press. The blocks will resemble "lagos" and will fit very tightly and very very insulated.
Batayev, recently-retired chief of the Mongolia Police Academy, whom I trained in Utah in the late '90's, and who introduce us to the legal advisor to the Mongolian president, called Friday morning and said he was coming to pick us up at 1:30. He did not say for what, but when he came, he to us to the headquarters of a large congolomorate of companies he directs. They have meat-packing plants and other livestock product companies and also have the only food testing lab in Mongolia. We toured his lab with him. It was most impressive, almost like something we would see in the U.S. He then took us to his daughter's small hotel where we had an excellent late lunch.
Batayev is a very special man. I gave him a Book of Mormon when he was in Utah, and he has read it. He also told me that one night he was driving on a rough back-country road and picked up two young men who were trying to get home. He recognized them as our missionaries from their badges (I had introduced missionaries to him before). He took them to their apartment; and when he went to his car the next morning he found the Book of Mormon and a Church pamphlet in the back of his car. His good impression of he Church will continue to be very helpful to us here.
I visited the headquarters of the Ivanhoe Mines Company (a large Canadian company that manages a number of smaller mining companies in the Gobi Desert) to get permission to visit their site next weekend to meet with members of the Church who work there. Many of them are returned missionaries. I have communicated with them by e-mail; they are very anxious for us to visit them, and so are we.
Joshua and Kim continue to do very well. Josh is proving to be a very good teacher at the American School and enjoys it a lot. They are here now and will have dinner with Bother Huei, his fiancee, and us.
We love you. Please do write. And, please visit Mother. She is so very lonely. I do call her at least once a week, but she does need family visitors.
We love you.
Mother and Dad
Monday, October 6, 2008
Something was Lost in the Translation
Our Dear Family:
Linda and I had lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant today and I copied these descriptions from the menu. Obviously, the translation into English is an attempt to make it readable after having been translated from Chinese into Mongolian:
* the farmer is a fresh
* fire paper elbows
* the farmer is small to fry
* however mutton
* sheet iron bean su shrimp
* heavenly crushed hot son chicken
* take shelter from wind the soy
* water chicken
* lost soup doll vegetables
* loose rat fish
There were more, but these were the best. We had flied lice.
We love you.
Dad
Linda and I had lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant today and I copied these descriptions from the menu. Obviously, the translation into English is an attempt to make it readable after having been translated from Chinese into Mongolian:
* the farmer is a fresh
* fire paper elbows
* the farmer is small to fry
* however mutton
* sheet iron bean su shrimp
* heavenly crushed hot son chicken
* take shelter from wind the soy
* water chicken
* lost soup doll vegetables
* loose rat fish
There were more, but these were the best. We had flied lice.
We love you.
Dad
This week in Mongolia, week ending October 3rd
Our Dear, Dear Family:
I hope you can open all of these attachments. Finally, I had Joshua teach me yesterday how to upload photos from my camera and attach them to a message. There are a lot of them; in the future I hope I can send pictures as I take shots of anything I think will be interesting to you.
The photos include Ulaanbaatar at sunrise taken from our apartment window, our all-Mongolia youth conference (yellow shirts), photos at ceremonies where we distributed the 500 wheelchairs the Church gave to Mongolia, a short trip to the countryside, and Kimberley and myself in front of a painting Tsegmed did for us (Linda was still in her house robe and Joshua took the picture).
This past week I have spent a lot of time on government relations resolving some problems and trying to prevent others. There have been some legal questions, so we have also spent time on conference calls with Church attorneys in Salt Lake and Hong Kong. One of them arrives here this evening to meet with us tomorrow. We are getting things properly taken care of that should have been done quite a while ago.
We are having success with our lost missionary project and it has been rewarding this week to find several that were missing. And now the returned missionaries themselves are getting more involved in the search. I do not remember if I told you last week of our Returned Missionary fireside on last Sunday night: I think we had over 300 people attend in the beautiful chapel at our headquarters building and probably about 70 of them were returned missionaries.
On Thursday afternoon I spent quite a bit of time with Brother Aibek who is our group leader for members of the Church who work at mines in the Gobi Desert. He and I talked about twenty members there, most of whom are returned missionaries. They get paid much better there than anyplace else in the country; however, it is very hard work and very hard on their families. Some of the returned missionaries are English teachers there, others serve as interpreters. Others work underground in various jobs. They do meet in Sacrament Meeting each Sunday night, but it is difficult to get everyone there because of long and changing shifts--they work there three weeks without a day off and then have a week or so home. I plan to fly down there and spend four days with them later this month. I will have to get permission from the company, Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company that manages many smaller mining companies. I have found a lost member who was baptized in Utah, however, and he is helping me.
I have gone over my returned missionary search plan with the Ulaanbaatar District presidency and all of the branch presidencies in the district. Now I am trying to meet with their branch councils to get them more involved. It is going to take a lot of follow-up. I now need to get to Darkhan District to the north and to the four branches directly under the Mission and get them started on the project. I will do this after the trip to the Gobi.
Linda continues to keep very busy with Family History. She assists the family history directors in all of the branches (those in Ulaanbaatar come to her center; those in the other areas came once for training and now she works with them by telephone and internet. She will have occasional training sessions here.
The weather is still surprisingly warm, but Kim especially has been concerned about winter clothing. She was worried because a friend had told her that a good, long, down winter coat would cost up to $500. Yesterday, I took Josh and Kim to the black market (a big open market that was outside the system when the Russians controlled Mongolia and still called the black market even though it is totally legal now) and bought mink fur winter hats for Linda and Kim, and long down-filled coat for Kim (for $25), and high leather boots for Kim that are just large enough to wear winter socks inside. We will probably have winter clothes custom made for Joshua; and what I did not bring from home I have already purchased here.
Linda has already left for the Church building. She is helping a group of local missionaries who have been called to serve in Mongolia with their family history and with getting everything ready for them to go to the Hong Kong Temple. They will travel by train and will gone about two weeks. I am going early to meet with two branch councils before our Sacrament Meeting starts. Also President Andersen has asked me to meet with a returned Sister missionary who will apply for her visa to go to BYU to study English and then get into an undergraduate program. It is difficult to get visas, especially to study English. However, I have been successful with several I have helped with since we arrived here; and I do know the process well.
We love you very much. Please do write; we miss you so much. And do visit Mother. I called her this morning and again she told me how very lonely she is.
We love you dearly.
Mother and Dad (grandpa and grandma)
I hope you can open all of these attachments. Finally, I had Joshua teach me yesterday how to upload photos from my camera and attach them to a message. There are a lot of them; in the future I hope I can send pictures as I take shots of anything I think will be interesting to you.
The photos include Ulaanbaatar at sunrise taken from our apartment window, our all-Mongolia youth conference (yellow shirts), photos at ceremonies where we distributed the 500 wheelchairs the Church gave to Mongolia, a short trip to the countryside, and Kimberley and myself in front of a painting Tsegmed did for us (Linda was still in her house robe and Joshua took the picture).
This past week I have spent a lot of time on government relations resolving some problems and trying to prevent others. There have been some legal questions, so we have also spent time on conference calls with Church attorneys in Salt Lake and Hong Kong. One of them arrives here this evening to meet with us tomorrow. We are getting things properly taken care of that should have been done quite a while ago.
We are having success with our lost missionary project and it has been rewarding this week to find several that were missing. And now the returned missionaries themselves are getting more involved in the search. I do not remember if I told you last week of our Returned Missionary fireside on last Sunday night: I think we had over 300 people attend in the beautiful chapel at our headquarters building and probably about 70 of them were returned missionaries.
On Thursday afternoon I spent quite a bit of time with Brother Aibek who is our group leader for members of the Church who work at mines in the Gobi Desert. He and I talked about twenty members there, most of whom are returned missionaries. They get paid much better there than anyplace else in the country; however, it is very hard work and very hard on their families. Some of the returned missionaries are English teachers there, others serve as interpreters. Others work underground in various jobs. They do meet in Sacrament Meeting each Sunday night, but it is difficult to get everyone there because of long and changing shifts--they work there three weeks without a day off and then have a week or so home. I plan to fly down there and spend four days with them later this month. I will have to get permission from the company, Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company that manages many smaller mining companies. I have found a lost member who was baptized in Utah, however, and he is helping me.
I have gone over my returned missionary search plan with the Ulaanbaatar District presidency and all of the branch presidencies in the district. Now I am trying to meet with their branch councils to get them more involved. It is going to take a lot of follow-up. I now need to get to Darkhan District to the north and to the four branches directly under the Mission and get them started on the project. I will do this after the trip to the Gobi.
Linda continues to keep very busy with Family History. She assists the family history directors in all of the branches (those in Ulaanbaatar come to her center; those in the other areas came once for training and now she works with them by telephone and internet. She will have occasional training sessions here.
The weather is still surprisingly warm, but Kim especially has been concerned about winter clothing. She was worried because a friend had told her that a good, long, down winter coat would cost up to $500. Yesterday, I took Josh and Kim to the black market (a big open market that was outside the system when the Russians controlled Mongolia and still called the black market even though it is totally legal now) and bought mink fur winter hats for Linda and Kim, and long down-filled coat for Kim (for $25), and high leather boots for Kim that are just large enough to wear winter socks inside. We will probably have winter clothes custom made for Joshua; and what I did not bring from home I have already purchased here.
Linda has already left for the Church building. She is helping a group of local missionaries who have been called to serve in Mongolia with their family history and with getting everything ready for them to go to the Hong Kong Temple. They will travel by train and will gone about two weeks. I am going early to meet with two branch councils before our Sacrament Meeting starts. Also President Andersen has asked me to meet with a returned Sister missionary who will apply for her visa to go to BYU to study English and then get into an undergraduate program. It is difficult to get visas, especially to study English. However, I have been successful with several I have helped with since we arrived here; and I do know the process well.
We love you very much. Please do write; we miss you so much. And do visit Mother. I called her this morning and again she told me how very lonely she is.
We love you dearly.
Mother and Dad (grandpa and grandma)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
