Happy New Year

Our Dear, Dear Family:

We love you and miss you so very much. Every day we wish we could be with you and still be serving here. We know this is where we should be right now; but being away from you is hard.

We had dinner with Josh and Kim tonight at their apartment. We attend Church meetings at different buildings, so they came by taxi to our building after the meetings and then we went on to their school. It was a very pleasant evening with them. Their school and apartment are at the base of the mountains south of Ulaanbaatar; we are in the center of the city. They are off the usual taxi route, so we called Odnyam and he called a taxi to pick us up.

Our branch president, Tsog, is a returned missionary from Russia (probably about six years ago) and is a very good man and a very good leader. I am enjoying working with him and we build up Khan-Uul Branch. I think I wrote earlier about his asking me to serve as Sunday School President. We chose two counselors and a secretary to work with me. The secretary, Ariuka, I first met when we went to the big copper mine, Oyu Tolgoi. She is a returned missionary and I knew her in the MTC. Since neither of the counselors speaks English, she will be very important to us. One counselor is just being reactivated; the other is a fairly new convert and almost totally deaf (we are seeking fast offering funds to buy hearing aids for him). Both of them are committed to learn and help strengthen the Sunday School. We had our first meeting today and also made some big strides in improving the Sunday School in the branch. This seems somewhat new here. The district president is in our branch and he told me today that they do not have a district Sunday School presidency. Training and example are important parts of our responsibilities. Also, today Linda learned that one of the two Family History consultants she has been training in the branch has gotten a visa to move to Sweden to be with a sister there. She told President Tsog and within minutes he had called another woman (who even speaks English) to work with Linda.

There was a lot of partying and fireworks here for the new year. We stayed at home at watched the fireworks from our picture window. Work at the headquarters building slowed down as well since many of the employees, many of whom I work with in my assignments, were on vacation for one or two weeks.

My work has been slowed down this week and it will take a while to get back up to full efficiency. Zula, who has been my secretary since I arrived here, left for Utah on Wednesday. She has wanted to get into the BYU nursing school since she returned from her mission four years ago. She could not, however, pass the English tests with a high enough score to be admitted to BYU or another college. So, I helped her get into a real good English school in Salt Lake owned, operated, and taught by an Armenian woman whom I hired at UVSC. Zula should be able to get into BYU for fall semester. This is the first visa for English study in the U.S. I have been able to help a student get. I wrote a letter to the consulate explaining her desire to get a RN degree and then come back and work with others to improve nursing in Mongolia. She was told by the interviewing officer that more medical people should study abroad; and he issued her visa immediately. This put everything in high gear: she got her visa on Monday, we got the last available ticket on Tuesday, and she left on Wednesday. Now I starting over with a new secretary.

The new secretary is also a returned Utah Provo Mission Sister and is the wife of President Tsog. She is very good but it will take a while to train her and get her fully involved in my RM search and activation program.

The weather is still warm by Mongolian standards, actual temperatures being minus twenty to minus 35. If the sun shines and the wind does not blow out of Siberia, it is not bad at all. The pollution is very bad, especially in the morning and evening. We wear surgical masks when we walk very much outside. When we go to the office at the same time, we walk together. If I leave early, rather than Linda chancing a fall, she comes by taxi (only about $1 ride). Two of the senior sisters fell on the ice this past week: President Andersen's wife badly sprained one of her knees; Sister Caldwell (she and her husband arrive only about a month ago) broke her arm quite badly between her elbow and shoulder. We are careful on the slippery sidewalks; Linda has warm boots with deep rubber cleats.

Our apartment continues to be warm and comfortable. We cook good meals at home (most American products are available here at rather high prices) and we eat out occasionally for lunch. There is a Chinese restaurant, a fast-food Chicken cafe, an Indian restaurant, an almost American restaurant, and a Ukrainian restaurant within minutes of our building. Some days we will take sandwiches for lunch; some days we will have ramen noodles.

We get tired by the end of a long day; but we are in good health.

We love you. We appreciate your letters so very much.

Love, Dad and Mother