I Ain't Got No Sleep Cuz A Y'all.....
So this week was good, definitely the most monotonous week yet which was a bummer but oh well. Here's a rundown of what happened.
Friday: Today the language started making sense and I can understand a lot which is cool. Then my teacher said "yeah, you're all going to get to Mongolia and hit a wall and not be able to pick out any words." So we were all like "oh no, this is awesome." But it doesn't really matter, the language will come eventually. This night, Scrimsher and Nielsen and I stayed up way to late talking about hiking and camping and backpacking. They want to climb Mt. Whitney with me when we are back, so save them a spot in the house mom.
Saturday: So today we learned a Mongolian song in class which was dope. I don't know what it all means, but it's really cool. It sounds like it's straight out of Lord of the Rings, so it's really cool. The song is about a young boy who’s mother lives in a far away land. He is singing about seeing her in a mirage out on the Mongolian grasslands. Totally appropriate song to be teaching to a bunch of missionaries who are all missing their moms. It really helped my pronunciation and reading a lot though, so that was cool. I’m going to send you a YouTube link of the song so you can watch it.
Sunday: Sunday was normal stuff. We watched a movie about John Tanner which was super motivating. So he was this guy who was filthy rich. Like loaded with money. He joined the church and sold every single thing he owned so he could pay off the debts the church owed and buy temple grounds and stuff like that. He ended up giving like $5 million in today's standards. It was nuts. It was really inspiring to learn about him.
Monday: So we learned that the word for Elder on our nametag means superior in Mongolian. So no big deal. Today was also good because we had Chick Fil A for lunch. Oh that place is heavenly.
Tuesday: The language today started to make a lot of sense too which was way cool. I spoke practically the whole time during the lesson which I've never done before, and it was all stuff I pulled out of my head. Let me tell you people, prayer is real. Elder Ballard came and spoke to us too this night. He's a funny guy, he was straight roasting people from the pulpit. He did a Q&A type of thing which was cool. So we learned a lot about the basic principles of the gospel, he had some really interesting insights.
Wednesday: Yesterday was really cool. Like really cool. We had to teach some of the brand new missionaries that came in today in English and I was terrified. I am so grateful I am going to Mongolia. And I guess I just felt like super strongly yesterday that I I was called to Mongolia for a reason. When I was teaching in English I was super nervous and wanted to start speaking Mongolian because that's more comfortable. I never thought that would happen. And we taught a lesson to a lady in Mongolia over Skype and I could understand her and she could understand me which kinda blew me away. This language sounds like gibberish but it's really cool when you can understand it. So I was super grateful for that. Her name means Crystal, in Mongolian. The mongols all have Native American type names which is dope.
So that's my week! Next week we go to BYU so our P day is on Saturday. So I won't be able to email until then. We are going to BYU to do our ELC. (English Language Certificate which allows him to teach English in Mongolia) We will be on campus all day and then have Mongolian classes later that evening. It will be a long week. We don’t get our exercise time each day because we will be at BYU during that time.
Also we were told that the American missionaries get hit up a lot to marry the Mongolian girls so that they can get a green card. We were told that we need to carry a picture of our girlfriend, if we have one, or just a picture of a random girl to show people that we are dating someone. So that's crazy. I emailed you a picture that I need you to make into a wallet size for me please.
Thanks for everything!
Love you all,
Austin
Zone at the Temple
Elders Nielson and Schofield
Here is the link to the You Tube video of the Mongolian song that they were learning in class.
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