So Close to Christmas

Our Dear Family:

The closer it comes to Christmas, the more we miss all of you. We did have a little Christmas party at our apartment last night with Josh and Kim and two of their friends whom they knew at their school in China--Brian and his nine-year-old daughter. He also teaches art here at the International School (Kim and Josh teach at the American School of Ulaanbaatar); his daughter, Savannah, is a very sweet little girl and seems to practically worship Joshua and Kimberly. She had written a sweet little Christmas card for us. We gave her a small gift. After dinner we watched the DVD "Joy to the World." Brian went to sleep; Savannah loved it.

Both of us have spent the week on our main assignments: Linda on family history and I on my missionary search. My search is going better as the branch presidents are more responsive (if they do not report as I have asked, I invite the ones in Ulaanbaatar to my office with the records I have sent them and we review them together. The come back each week and will continue to do so until we have found or know we cannot find the missionaries called from their branch. We are also having some continued success in reactivating some of the missionaries we are finding.

My artist friend, Tsegmed, continues to attend sacrament meeting with us. Today one of the speakers in Sacrament Meeting referred mostly to the book of Genesis. After his talk, Tsegmed asked where he could get a Bible. Tsegmed was baptized in Provo when I brought him there for treatment for brain trauma after a fall into a deep canyon and I gave him an English Book of Mormon then. He and his wife, Tuya (also a very talented artist) have been inactive until we got here. I gave him a Mongolian Book of Mormon; now, together with the Bible in Mongolian, I will give him a triple combination in Mongolian.

We had one day of snow here this week and it was soon compacted into ice. The traffic on the roads keep them almost clear of ice;but the sidewalks are very icy. We usually walk to and from our offices together, and Linda holds tightly onto my arm so she will not slip and fall. When I go to the office earlier, she will take a taxi. It costs about 90 cents from our apartment to the headquarters building.

Despite the very cold weather--we have had mornings with the temperature twenty-five degrees below zero, we do keep plenty warm in our apartment. The heat for the buildings here comes from the power plants in the form of hot water. This is circulated through the ceilings and walls of the apartments in the buildings and heats radiators inside. We have two of these heat radiators, one in our main room and one in the bedroom. We can control the heat only by opening or closing a valve in the pipes that lead to the radiators. Right now, we have the pipes shut off completely. The heat radiating from the walls and our floor keep us plenty warm.

I am just about over my flu and feeling much better. Linda gets tired easily, but otherwise if feeling well. My secretary, Zula, who was in my branch at the MTC and who has studied nursing here, found where we can get flu shots. I asked our mission doctor about this in October and he said we couldn't get them here. The Mission was supposed to see if they could get the shots from Hong Kong but did not do it.

We have been drawn into help plan for almost a week of meetings and parties for Chistmas. I guess the other senior missionaries thought we were a bit crazy when we told them that rather than paying US$30 each for a Christmas lunch we would prefer to use the money to help the two poor ger families we want to help. The told us, though, that we "had to" participate, so I guess we will. I would prefer less parties and more service.

The CES director from Hong Kong, Brother Cheuk, was here this week. He was shocked when I spoke with him in Cantonese; but before he returned to Hong Kong, he and I had some very pleasant conversations about Hong Kong and the history of the Church there.

Today in Sacrament Meeting, the branch president sustained my two counselors and secretary in the Sunday School. Neither counselor speaks any English, so it is a blessing that sister who was in my branch at the MTC, Ariunbolor, is our secretary. She is a professional translator and speaks perfect English. She and her husband have been married in the civil court for a few years. They will be married in the Church on Wednesday and sealed in the Hong Kong Temple on Christmas Day. We have also been invited to attend the wedding at the Wedding Palace for Brother Purevsuren's daughter who has been home for a semester from her studies at BYU-Hawaii. She is marrying an American member. Purevsuren is the brother who slept on the couch in Kona, Hawaii, when all of the women and girls were there in the house Tamar rented for a month.

We miss all of you so very much. We love you and pray for you always.

Love, Mother and Dad