July emails

July 27 2009

Our Dear, Dear Family:

This has been a very busy and even stressful week. Linda continues to be almost swamped with family history work, and a sister called to help her seems to have abandoned the work. Fortunately another very dependable and intelligent sister is helping her. She gets tired but is still excited about what she is accomplishing.

My work with returned missionaries is progressing well and we have our final lists in the hands of our stake, ward, district, and branch leaders. Now we will just have to follow up with each leader each week to keep them reminded to work with their inactive returned missionaries.

We are having some problems with registration of the Church and some of our branches with the national and city governments. They have conducted an inspection of all churches in Mongolia and claim that we have not complied with all of their requirements in some of our branches. In Erdenet, a four and one-half drive north of Ulaanbaatar, they delivered a decree to the branch that informed them that they had ten days to comply or our Church activities there must cease. I had some of my friends in the national government and in the provincial government next to Erdenet call the Erdenet government and make an appointment for us to talk with them. The assistant to the member of parliament in the neighboring province is a classmate of the secretary, and he went with us. The chairman is on vacation, so we met with the secretary of the city committee. She claimed our case is serious because there was no registration in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The head of our service center was with me and had copies of our registration for those years. The city government has evidently lost them. The secretary agreed we could meet on Sunday, 7/26, but that we could hold no more activities until after the committee meets on August 6th. Our service center director will try to meet with the chairman before then and be there for the meeting of the full committee. I am attempting to get help from my friends in top positions in the national and Ulaanbaatar City governments to help us here.

The weather is still cool and we continue to get some rain. It is very comfortable and we will continue to enjoy this interim between spring and the coming winter.

We enjoyed a most unusual experience on Saturday: the sister of the president of the branch we previously advised came to Mongolia to marry a man she was engaged to in Spain where she has been living. Both wanted something more than the wedding chapel wedding or a hotel wedding, so they made arrangements for a Chiingis Khaan period wedding at what is called the Thirteenth Century Center out in the mountains about two hours east of Ulaanbaatar. The place itself is fascinating. When we arrived there, we drove through huge stone gateways guarded by soldiers in ancient leather armor and helmets. Then our first stop was at the "learning center."
The gers in the whole area are the ancient type with heavy felt covers and no white canvas. They have some painting on them. At the learning center there were several gers interspersed among the most unusual rock formations. We were taken to the main ger where we were told about their ancient teaching and were presented with antique paper with our names written in traditional script.

From the learning center we drove to the crafts center. Again, there were several gers placed most aesthetically among the rock formations. In these gers craftsmen and women were hand working tools, clothing, armor, weapons, etc., from natural materials for the tribe. Again we were invited into the largest of the gers and shown their crafts and how they made them. Their work with bone was especially interesting. And, it was here that we met the bride and groom, Amarjargal and Raphael. Both were dressed in beautiful modern dels (long gowns) and hats.

We were then driven to the shaman center, where hundreds of ten inch poles had been laid in a circle with sharpened points outward and about three feet above the ground. They were tightly roped together and their was a tree covered with their ceremonial blue scarves in the very center. Surrounding this circle of sharpened poles were a number of traditional gers from different parts of Mongolia. We were taken inside and shown the many colored hand-sewn carpets, animal skins, and other typical family possessions. They even had the "ger" of the reindeer people in the far north of Mongolia. Their ger is shaped exactly like a Native American teepee.
The only difference is that the poles are covered with bark and felt instead of skins. I asked our guide what the reindeer people called their ger. She said "Tipi."

The bride was in the largest of the gers there in an ancient and beautiful del. She said she was waiting for her groom to come and get her. Very shortly the groom rode up on a horse with six other "soldiers," all of them in the ancient armor and hat. Each carried a sword. They came to the bride's ger, and after they drank mare's milk and concluded some simple ceremonies, they took the bride down to their horses where they also had a very beautiful horse for the bride. She was helped onto this horse and they rode away toward the khan's huge ger about two miles away. As they left, the female shaman tossed fermented mares milk upward in several directions.

We followed the horses to the great ger and inside it. The bride and groom were directed to a huge carved and fur covered throne where they sat together. The family of the bride sat at a low table in front of the throne; other guests sat at low tables on either side. The inside of the ger was beautifully decorated with colored carpets, furs, and paintings. The bride's father officially gave her to the groom and then the feast began. The attendants were all in ancient clothing and their service was impeccable.

During the feast we had entertainment by two young women, one play the morinhor (horsehead fiddle) and the other a long stringed instrument like a zither. Then a young man sang traditonal love songs. Inside that beautiful ger, the experience was very much like being with Chinggis Khan himself.

After the inside ceremony, they attendants entertained the wedding group outside with wrestling, archery, and horseback riding. The large ger sat at the base of the huge rock formations at the top of the mountain and without any obstruction we could see over twenty miles in three directions--a green valley with scattered gers and low, grass-covered hills.

It was an amazing experience.

All is well here; we pray always for your well-being and happiness.
Love, Mother and Dad



July 20 2009

Our Dear, Dear Family:

Last week is almost like a blur as I try to write to you. It was busy and complicated. We did get a lot done; but it was just too busy. I do think I can remember the highlights to share with you.

It has been good during the week to talk to some of you. We tried to call all of you but could not find some of you. We love you and miss you so much. Half our mission has gone by already. I am sure will will be quite ready to come home when we finish the remaining months.

I do not remember if I told you last week that a good friend from the branch we previously advised brought the director for the Mongolian paralympic games to my office to see what we could do to help. My new assistant, Batchimeg, and I were soon members of the committee, and I agreed to purchase the gold, silver and bronze medals. I reported this to President Andersen and got permission that the name of the Church be engraved in Mongolian on the back of all of the medals. They brought the medals to show us today. They are beautifullly done and do have the name of the Church engraved prominently on the back of each. This is a great opportunity for the Church to help with a very worthwhile event; and the publicity we will get will be very good for us. And, besides, this fun.

On Friday I delivered our report of all returned missionaries to President Andersen. He was very pleased and said that he would send it to the area presidency as a model for other missions in working with their returned missionaries. Of the total of 660 returned Mongolian Missionaries, we have 402 living in Mongolia. Of these 59% are active. This percentage has risen from about 45% before we started our effort to reactive the inactive ones. There are 198 in the U.S.; 21 in Korea; 8 in Japan; and a one or more in Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, England, Australia, Austria, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Switzerland.

With the help of a committee set up by Stan's acting provost at Utah State University, we finalized plans, got visas, purchased plane tickets, and arranged medical insurance for the group of six students being sent to Logan by the Mongolian Government for eight weeks' of English study. They are exceptional students; and the preparations at USU are excellent.

We had the heaviest rain storm I have ever seen in Mongolia here on Friday. The streets were raging rivers and the thunder and lightning were sensational. I had to walk to the office from our apartment during the worst of the storm. It was almost fun.

Church attendance in our branch was way down last week due to the national holiday; but yesterday it was back up to almost normal. Our leadership is still young in the Gospel but are learning and doing quite well--especially for Mongolia.

We love you.
Love, Mother and Dad