Our Dear, Dear Family:
It was wonderful talking with so many of you this week. It does, however, make us a bit homesick hearing your voices and not being able to see you and talk with you longer.
The past week has not been too good for me: the flu I caught over two months ago just keeps hanging on. Finally, on Thursday I just could not get going, so I stayed in the apartment and did not go out at all until this morning (Monday). Linda came to the apartment late morning on Thursday with President Andersen and Elder Andersen, our mission doctor. They gave me a blessing and later Linda brought home an antibiotic that Dr.Andersen prescribed. I felt good enough to come to the office this morning and have been quite busy. I do not know, though, if I will make it through the whole day.
Linda and her three staff members put together a fireside for last night about tribes in Mongolia. Each person does belong to a specific tribe, must most Mongolians do not know their tribe name. Knowing their tribe name will help immensely with their family history since all Mongolians take their father's given name as their surname: so no continuity in surnames. Linda learned about this a month or two ago and found a book with all of the tribes and their locations. She also visited the National Archives and Civil Records Office for more help. Hundreds of members and non-members came to the fireside last night. It was a total success. I am truly proud of what she has done with this project and with all she is doing in family history. The Family History director for Asia even came up from Hong Kong for the fireside.
The days I was in the office last week I spent mostly with the returned missionary project. We are making good progress in finding and re-activating missionaries but still have a long way to go. I have gotten reports from all of the branch presidents in Mongolia, from active returned missionaries, from BYU-Hawaii, and from BYU-Provo. No one has fully accurate records, including the Mission. This will be a continued effort for me throughout our entire mission.
The weather continues to be unseasonably warm with morning temperatures thirty below or so, and afternoons getting up to zero.
We love you. Thank you for the letters you write to us.
Love, Mother and Dad
Sunday, January 11, 2009
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
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
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Happy New Year
Our Dear Family:
Happy New Year! We pray that 2009 will bring all of you health, happiness, and prosperity. And, for Cameron, a wonderful experience in the MTC and a great mission.
This week has been busy with mostly mission meetings. We had a mission conference on Wednesday, transmission of he First Presidency Fireside on Thursday morning and lunch and entertainment by very talented missionaries in the afternoon. Friday we had a senior missionary conference in the morning and a celebration with the faculty and students of a college I helped set up here in 1994.
I played Santa Claus on Tuesday. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with me. The president of our branch, Khan-Uul, and his wife went with me to five families. Four of them live in tiny houses in the slum area, the other lives in a ger. One was a single mother with a tiny baby who lives in the ger with her handicapped father. We bought a one and one-half ton truck full of coal and shared it with the families. We also took one hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds of rice, and five quarts of milk to each family. For the children we bought clothing and toys, and formula for the little baby. One of the tiny houses, a single room, was built of warped plywood only.
Tuesday night a beautiful district choir presented a Christmas concert in our headquarters building. We had a VIP reception just before the concert and most of the people who attended were people in government whom I have befriended over the past fifteen years, including two former ambassadors to the U.S. and their wives. Gonchidorj could not come so Ariuna (who stayed with us in Orem for many months) came in his place.
Yesterday, Odnyam took Josh and me to the black market shopping. Josh bought some very nice, very warm high boots and warm gloves for him and Kim. I bought a large piece of high density foam, four inches thick, for Linda. We have been sleeping on deluxe air mattresses which I enjoy very much. She moves too much during the night and felt she was not resting well on the air mattress. I cut the foam to fit her bed, slid the bed next to the wall, and put the other half of the foam between our beds. Hopefully this will keep her from sliding her mattress off the bed.
I bought two very nice antiques: a burnished bronze bull with intricate brass decorations on it, and a bronze vase with a phoenix forming each side. They are perhaps hundreds of years old; and with tourists almost non-existent in the winter here, they were inexpensive.
We spent the afternoon at our branch Christmas party. It was almost like Christmas in Fremont when I was a child: Santa Claus (one of the Elders) with his huge bag of gifts (food and drinks), songs by over twenty Primary children in beautiful clothing, and numbers by other age groups. It was very pleasant.
Odnyam and his wife's sister (who is home from Germany for the holidays) took Josh, Kim, Linda, and I to a Korean restaurant for dinner. We were served by Andrew's favorite waitress. She speaks some English and does remember serving Andrew there.
Our Sabbath has been very pleasant. There is a sweet spirit in Khan-Uul branch.
We had light snow most of the day yesterday. This layer of snow on top of the ice already on the sidewalks makes walking a bit dangerous.
Josh and Kim have stayed with us in our apartment most of the week. There have been water problems in their apartment complex which should have been repaired before yesterday. The job was not finished last night, so they stayed over until today. They will go home later today. Hopefully the water problems will be taken care of.
We love you. We pray for you always.
Love, Mother and Dad
Happy New Year! We pray that 2009 will bring all of you health, happiness, and prosperity. And, for Cameron, a wonderful experience in the MTC and a great mission.
This week has been busy with mostly mission meetings. We had a mission conference on Wednesday, transmission of he First Presidency Fireside on Thursday morning and lunch and entertainment by very talented missionaries in the afternoon. Friday we had a senior missionary conference in the morning and a celebration with the faculty and students of a college I helped set up here in 1994.
I played Santa Claus on Tuesday. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with me. The president of our branch, Khan-Uul, and his wife went with me to five families. Four of them live in tiny houses in the slum area, the other lives in a ger. One was a single mother with a tiny baby who lives in the ger with her handicapped father. We bought a one and one-half ton truck full of coal and shared it with the families. We also took one hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds of rice, and five quarts of milk to each family. For the children we bought clothing and toys, and formula for the little baby. One of the tiny houses, a single room, was built of warped plywood only.
Tuesday night a beautiful district choir presented a Christmas concert in our headquarters building. We had a VIP reception just before the concert and most of the people who attended were people in government whom I have befriended over the past fifteen years, including two former ambassadors to the U.S. and their wives. Gonchidorj could not come so Ariuna (who stayed with us in Orem for many months) came in his place.
Yesterday, Odnyam took Josh and me to the black market shopping. Josh bought some very nice, very warm high boots and warm gloves for him and Kim. I bought a large piece of high density foam, four inches thick, for Linda. We have been sleeping on deluxe air mattresses which I enjoy very much. She moves too much during the night and felt she was not resting well on the air mattress. I cut the foam to fit her bed, slid the bed next to the wall, and put the other half of the foam between our beds. Hopefully this will keep her from sliding her mattress off the bed.
I bought two very nice antiques: a burnished bronze bull with intricate brass decorations on it, and a bronze vase with a phoenix forming each side. They are perhaps hundreds of years old; and with tourists almost non-existent in the winter here, they were inexpensive.
We spent the afternoon at our branch Christmas party. It was almost like Christmas in Fremont when I was a child: Santa Claus (one of the Elders) with his huge bag of gifts (food and drinks), songs by over twenty Primary children in beautiful clothing, and numbers by other age groups. It was very pleasant.
Odnyam and his wife's sister (who is home from Germany for the holidays) took Josh, Kim, Linda, and I to a Korean restaurant for dinner. We were served by Andrew's favorite waitress. She speaks some English and does remember serving Andrew there.
Our Sabbath has been very pleasant. There is a sweet spirit in Khan-Uul branch.
We had light snow most of the day yesterday. This layer of snow on top of the ice already on the sidewalks makes walking a bit dangerous.
Josh and Kim have stayed with us in our apartment most of the week. There have been water problems in their apartment complex which should have been repaired before yesterday. The job was not finished last night, so they stayed over until today. They will go home later today. Hopefully the water problems will be taken care of.
We love you. We pray for you always.
Love, Mother and Dad
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Have a Very Happy Christmas
Our Dear, Dear Family:
We feel so lonely away from you, especially as Christmas approaches. How we wish we could be with you for the family Christmas party. We know it will be a special time for all of you. Our hearts, prayers, and spirits will be with you.
We do pray that all of you will have a very happy and spiritual Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.
We do not at all miss the commercialization of Christmas back home. And, the big stores are even doing some of the same here.
Let us all remember that Christmas is intended to be a time of spiritual rejoicing to remember the birth, life, and atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For this we give our deepest thanks to our Father in Heaven.
May God be with and bless each of you this Christmas season and always. We love you dearly.
We feel so lonely away from you, especially as Christmas approaches. How we wish we could be with you for the family Christmas party. We know it will be a special time for all of you. Our hearts, prayers, and spirits will be with you.
We do pray that all of you will have a very happy and spiritual Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.
We do not at all miss the commercialization of Christmas back home. And, the big stores are even doing some of the same here.
Let us all remember that Christmas is intended to be a time of spiritual rejoicing to remember the birth, life, and atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For this we give our deepest thanks to our Father in Heaven.
May God be with and bless each of you this Christmas season and always. We love you dearly.
Weekly Report from Grandma
Dear President Andersen,
I have already carbon copied three emails to you this morning that Danny Chin requested by telephone Saturday evening.
At our last quarterly consultant training meeting we had the sisters sign up for Saturday Training in PAF. We will have 4 sisters come in each Saturday so that we can personally help them understand the Church's Personal Ancestral Program (PAF). In the future I hope it will be possible for each FH consultant to have a computer so that they can help members in their own chapel. I know the work is going to progress rapidly in the future. The consultants could arrange for different branch members to come in and help them with their FH. It will slowly evolve. When new.familysearch.org is released we will need more frequent and closer supervised help from the branch family history consultants and the members. There are many new concepts and "steps" that need to be taught.
We are having a District FH Fireside on January 11, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. It will be held in the Chapel. We will talk about TRIBE names and help the members identify theirs. If it fits your schedule and is convenient, we would like to invite you and Sister Andersen to attend and speak on the importance of FH work and how it can help us get our own temple in Mongolia. As you know, I feel that Oyuna was inspired to mention the TRIBE name listing on the National Identify Card that each Mongolian citizen over 18 carries with them at all times. Knowing one's TRIBE name will greatly assist them in identifying their ancestors and facilitating their FH research.
On April 19th we have reserved the Chalpel at 6:00 p.m. for a FIRESIDE open to all members of the church where we will discuss "GOLDEN GENERATION/GENEALOGY" (identifying your true TRIBE name). We are inviting an expert to teach the Saints.
I want to thank you for talking to Oyuna about her concerns. She came back from your interview with more peace than she has had since I first knew her. THANK YOU! It is wonderful to have the priesthood direction and wisdom that you share with all of us. I am so relieved that you told her NOT to resign. She is the backbone of our FH Center!
I also appreciated your response to my last weekly report. Only the Lord did knew how to slow down Elder Jackson. He is feeling much better now, but it was a rough 2 weeks to keep going as much as he did. He has "true grit".
I am feeling well. I get tired too easily, but I guess that's what happens as we age. I love my calling and feel the Lord is guiding and directing me to know how to serve the Saints here in regards to doing their FH.
We are grateful to you and your sweet wife for all that you do for us and your continued direction.
Love, Sister Linda Lou Jackson
This weekend it will be 30 degrees below Fahrenheit. But we bundle up and are warm.
Missing all of you so very much. 4 months down, only 19 to go. We'll make it with your support. We are both so proud of all that you are doing.
I have already carbon copied three emails to you this morning that Danny Chin requested by telephone Saturday evening.
At our last quarterly consultant training meeting we had the sisters sign up for Saturday Training in PAF. We will have 4 sisters come in each Saturday so that we can personally help them understand the Church's Personal Ancestral Program (PAF). In the future I hope it will be possible for each FH consultant to have a computer so that they can help members in their own chapel. I know the work is going to progress rapidly in the future. The consultants could arrange for different branch members to come in and help them with their FH. It will slowly evolve. When new.familysearch.org is released we will need more frequent and closer supervised help from the branch family history consultants and the members. There are many new concepts and "steps" that need to be taught.
We are having a District FH Fireside on January 11, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. It will be held in the Chapel. We will talk about TRIBE names and help the members identify theirs. If it fits your schedule and is convenient, we would like to invite you and Sister Andersen to attend and speak on the importance of FH work and how it can help us get our own temple in Mongolia. As you know, I feel that Oyuna was inspired to mention the TRIBE name listing on the National Identify Card that each Mongolian citizen over 18 carries with them at all times. Knowing one's TRIBE name will greatly assist them in identifying their ancestors and facilitating their FH research.
On April 19th we have reserved the Chalpel at 6:00 p.m. for a FIRESIDE open to all members of the church where we will discuss "GOLDEN GENERATION/GENEALOGY" (identifying your true TRIBE name). We are inviting an expert to teach the Saints.
I want to thank you for talking to Oyuna about her concerns. She came back from your interview with more peace than she has had since I first knew her. THANK YOU! It is wonderful to have the priesthood direction and wisdom that you share with all of us. I am so relieved that you told her NOT to resign. She is the backbone of our FH Center!
I also appreciated your response to my last weekly report. Only the Lord did knew how to slow down Elder Jackson. He is feeling much better now, but it was a rough 2 weeks to keep going as much as he did. He has "true grit".
I am feeling well. I get tired too easily, but I guess that's what happens as we age. I love my calling and feel the Lord is guiding and directing me to know how to serve the Saints here in regards to doing their FH.
We are grateful to you and your sweet wife for all that you do for us and your continued direction.
Love, Sister Linda Lou Jackson
This weekend it will be 30 degrees below Fahrenheit. But we bundle up and are warm.
Missing all of you so very much. 4 months down, only 19 to go. We'll make it with your support. We are both so proud of all that you are doing.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Life in Mongolia
I have finished my work for today and am waiting for Linda to finish her English class in about fifteen minutes, so I thought I would write and tell you some of the more mundane and daily things I have not really written before:
Our apartment is small: we have the entrance which has the hangers for our heavy coats and hats and doors to the small bathroom and small bedroom. This hallway opens into the one room that is our kitchen, sitting room, and dining room. It is about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. The west end of this room is all a bay window and looks out over the center of Ulaanbaatar City. As you saw in the pictures we sent, the room is adequately furnished. We do have an old TV with channels mostly in Mongolian. Those in English are geared to a Russian and Australian audience.
Our bedroom has two beds that were made up when we arrived with a plywood mattress covered by a sheet and a comforter. We have since added high quality air mattresses (the only soft mattresses in the country) and pairs of sheets. We both brought our own pillows. The beds are pushed together with about one foot on either side. There is a closet about eighteen inches from the foot of the beds. It has enough space to hang only very basic clothing. There are a few small storage areas on the side and the too and two small drawers on the bottom. We have stored our suitcases on top of the closet and at the head of our beds. It is adequate for sleeping in, so we have no real complaint.
We do have an automatic washer which is in our small bathroom. It works quite well, but is filled with water direct from the outside water line which is not very clean (we have three filters for our drinking water and when we change them, they are very dirty). Our refrigerator and stove are very small. We cannot get a regular sheet cake pan in the oven. We do have a small microwave.
Starting the day with a bath is a bit time-consuming: we do get heated water from the main line from the power plant, but it is never hot enough for a good bath, so we heat water in a two-quart electric water heater while I check my laptop for new e-mails, news, and weather. I usually cook breakfast and eat it while I am at the computer. I usually let Linda sleep longer, and she often comes to the office after I do.
We walk the half mile to the office, and now our walking is on very slippery sidewalks (it has snowed the last two nights and we will probably not see clear sidewalks again until March). If Linda comes later now, I insist she comes by taxi.
We usually bring sandwiches or something we can carry in a small plastic container for lunch and eat in my office. Occasionally we will eat our lunch at a nearby restaurant. Within five minutes of our building we have an Indian restaurant, a European/Mongolian restaurant, a Ukrainian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a restaurant in the large Chinggis Khaan Hotel, and numerous small cafes we prefer not to enter.
Linda teaches an English class each Tuesday and Thursday and does not finish until about 7:30, and I always have enough work to keep me busy until then. We preside at a family home evening for three branches once in three weeks; the other Mondays I attend a returned missionary fireside. On these nights we get home at about 9:00 p.m. So, we have Wednesday and Friday nights to be at home and are occasionally invited out by friends.
We can buy almost any food we want here. It is imported and more expensive than in Utah. Needless to say, we do not buy Chinese milk anymore. One Mongolian company produces good pasteurized milk, but the taste is not quite what we are accustomed to.
We do have a housekeeper: we have hired one of the two female custodians at the headquarters building to come once a week after work. She cleans our apartment in about three or four hours. We pay her about $50 per month.
Occasionally we help people who are badly in need of food or clothing; but, we have to watch carefully for scams.
The traffic is terrible and pedestrians have no rights at all, so we have to be extremely careful in crossing a street, even when we have a green light and a policeman trying to control traffic.
With the colder weather, the air in the Ulaanbaatar basin is horrible, mostly due to people living in thousands of gers around the city trying to keep warm burning coal and anything else they can find to feed their fires. On bad days we wear surgical masks to and from the office.
We are not yet fully settled in--too many things are different; too many things are unpredictable.
Being here, though, is what we want right now; and the work and the people may it very much worthwhile.
We love you.
Love, Dad
Our apartment is small: we have the entrance which has the hangers for our heavy coats and hats and doors to the small bathroom and small bedroom. This hallway opens into the one room that is our kitchen, sitting room, and dining room. It is about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. The west end of this room is all a bay window and looks out over the center of Ulaanbaatar City. As you saw in the pictures we sent, the room is adequately furnished. We do have an old TV with channels mostly in Mongolian. Those in English are geared to a Russian and Australian audience.
Our bedroom has two beds that were made up when we arrived with a plywood mattress covered by a sheet and a comforter. We have since added high quality air mattresses (the only soft mattresses in the country) and pairs of sheets. We both brought our own pillows. The beds are pushed together with about one foot on either side. There is a closet about eighteen inches from the foot of the beds. It has enough space to hang only very basic clothing. There are a few small storage areas on the side and the too and two small drawers on the bottom. We have stored our suitcases on top of the closet and at the head of our beds. It is adequate for sleeping in, so we have no real complaint.
We do have an automatic washer which is in our small bathroom. It works quite well, but is filled with water direct from the outside water line which is not very clean (we have three filters for our drinking water and when we change them, they are very dirty). Our refrigerator and stove are very small. We cannot get a regular sheet cake pan in the oven. We do have a small microwave.
Starting the day with a bath is a bit time-consuming: we do get heated water from the main line from the power plant, but it is never hot enough for a good bath, so we heat water in a two-quart electric water heater while I check my laptop for new e-mails, news, and weather. I usually cook breakfast and eat it while I am at the computer. I usually let Linda sleep longer, and she often comes to the office after I do.
We walk the half mile to the office, and now our walking is on very slippery sidewalks (it has snowed the last two nights and we will probably not see clear sidewalks again until March). If Linda comes later now, I insist she comes by taxi.
We usually bring sandwiches or something we can carry in a small plastic container for lunch and eat in my office. Occasionally we will eat our lunch at a nearby restaurant. Within five minutes of our building we have an Indian restaurant, a European/Mongolian restaurant, a Ukrainian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a restaurant in the large Chinggis Khaan Hotel, and numerous small cafes we prefer not to enter.
Linda teaches an English class each Tuesday and Thursday and does not finish until about 7:30, and I always have enough work to keep me busy until then. We preside at a family home evening for three branches once in three weeks; the other Mondays I attend a returned missionary fireside. On these nights we get home at about 9:00 p.m. So, we have Wednesday and Friday nights to be at home and are occasionally invited out by friends.
We can buy almost any food we want here. It is imported and more expensive than in Utah. Needless to say, we do not buy Chinese milk anymore. One Mongolian company produces good pasteurized milk, but the taste is not quite what we are accustomed to.
We do have a housekeeper: we have hired one of the two female custodians at the headquarters building to come once a week after work. She cleans our apartment in about three or four hours. We pay her about $50 per month.
Occasionally we help people who are badly in need of food or clothing; but, we have to watch carefully for scams.
The traffic is terrible and pedestrians have no rights at all, so we have to be extremely careful in crossing a street, even when we have a green light and a policeman trying to control traffic.
With the colder weather, the air in the Ulaanbaatar basin is horrible, mostly due to people living in thousands of gers around the city trying to keep warm burning coal and anything else they can find to feed their fires. On bad days we wear surgical masks to and from the office.
We are not yet fully settled in--too many things are different; too many things are unpredictable.
Being here, though, is what we want right now; and the work and the people may it very much worthwhile.
We love you.
Love, Dad
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