You Have Died of Dysentary...

June 11, 2018

You Have Died of Dysentary...

What's up mom,

So this week was good, pretty tough, but good regardless. It is getting hard out here because we really don't do a lot of traditional missionary work, or any missionary work for that matter. So its really difficult to feel as though we are being effective and helping grow the church out here. Like this week we didn't have a single person to meet with, or any service to do, and because of the regulations we have here, we can't go out and fill that time with finding like other missionaries would. So we do things to help us pass the time, that aren't really missionary things, like we walk around and visit stores and cool places in the city, check our emails at internet places, get food with tons of other elders. Stuff like that. And it really makes you feel like you aren't being effective at all because we aren't out doing missionary things. And it's hard to feel as though we are even being effective and useful out here. Yeah, I want to improve on this mission, but ultimately I didn't come out here for me, I came out here to help the people here. So its hard to feel like we aren't helping anyone, or doing anything. And it is super mentally draining to feel like this, but then one day this last week I realized that truly I'm living the dream. Like I'm out here in a freaking crazy foreign country doing missionary work, I'm going to BYU after this, have the best girlfriend in the world, my family is honestly the best in the universe. Like it doesn't get much closer to the Mormon dream than that. I realized that what I am doing right now, I've been wanting to do my whole life, ever since I was a little kid. So yeah it may be hard, but it's what I've always wanted. I love it. So things are feeling up this week, although I do hope we get to do more missionary work haha. I don't just want this time to spent only on improving me, but helping other people. But here's my week:

Tuesday: So the adventure began this morning. Little back story first. So Mongolia is a communist state, don't let the news fool you, the government here is very communist. And it was set up by the Russians, so they have the communist infrastructure here. So every summer, they clean out the water pipes to make sure they don't break or have problems during the winter. A lot like what Josh had in Czech. But yeah. So in order to clean the pipes, all the hot water is turned off. So that's what happened. I was about to brave the shower in the freezing cold water, but there's no way. I stuck my head under and it legit gave me a headache haha. And I know that Dad and Easton are calling me a wimp right now, but I swear its the coldest water ever. Like Easton, remember that time you and Jacob and I went to Tahoe in January when it was snowing and we jumped in? Remember how cold that was (and the fact that I jumped in first because you're actually a huge wimp). It's seriously colder than that. So, what everyone does here, is get our coffee pot boiler things, and we boil water and dump it into the huge salad bowls we have, and we shower like that. It's like straight up what the pioneers did. It's actually how they shower here in the ger districts. But yeah, I've had salad bowl showers this whole week. But yeah, we just spent the day hanging out. We had nobody to meet with so we met up with some elders and hungout with them. Pretty boring day

Wednesday: So today we woke up and got a call from Batbeleg saying that he got super busy and he cant meet with us. So that really blows, but it's all good. So we just stayed home a little bit longer and did more studies. But then Garcia had his interview today. So we went to the BZ and stuff, and stayed there while he had his interview. I met up with Pujee. She's the grandma I fake taught in the MTC. She's super funny and cool. Plus now she will speak to me in English because I know a little Mongolian haha. But yeah, so we had nothing to do after that, so we went to the huge mall here and walked around and hungout in the air conditioned building. No one here has AC so when you find a building with it, you gotta soak it up.

Thursday: So today we really did nothing at all. Like really nothing. We had our district meeting though, and we did it combined with another district. So we had a lot of people there which was really fun. But yeah, then we just hungout the rest of the day. But when we got home, I went to go wash my hands and the water was freaking orange. I don't know why, or how. But it was a dark orange. I sent videos. So yeah, if I get dysentery and die, we all know why. But yeah, orange water.

Friday: Today was pretty tough. We didn't do anything either. Water was still orange. Normal stuff. We ate at the bakery for breakfast though and it was fun. The place is a poppin joint around here, and they play some fun music and its a nice fun place. So we stayed there for a bit, then we just hungout with the other elders again.

Saturday: Now today was really hard. I dont know, it was just really draining not doing anything productive at all. So when I woke up I started making a study book for teaching lessons. President recommended that I do it, so I started making that today. It was good. I write phrases down in Mongolian that I want to say during that certain portion of a lesson. So its really helping my teaching. Then some elders said that we needed to go with them to a lesson because it was with a single lady. So we did. It was nice. She is a member and they were just meeting with her to see how she is doing and if she has any referrals. They asked me to share a spiritual thought, so I did. I felt that I did a good job, but one of the other elders was laughing to himself when I was speaking (my language is still pretty trash). So that was really discouraging, and set the tone the rest of the day. It was honestly pretty maddening too. Pro tip to people: dont judge others. Like all this elder does is study the language and he never studies the scriptures, whereas I would rather come home with a solid testimony rather than a language I will never use again. So I do study the language, just not as in depth as some people. I don't know, it kinda ticked me off that day.

Sunday: Today was the day I really needed. I was sick of not doing anything this whole week, so when we got to church I talked to some people and made appointments (funny how I can do that, but then I get laughed at when I share a spiritual thought). So I made some appointments for us this week, then I asked the Bishop if there's anyone he wants us to meet with and he gave me a name and a number that I will call today and set up a time to meet. So we will be busier this week which is good. Then the Harpers came to our church, they have family with them so Garcia had to translate for their family and I had to translate for Sister Harper and man, it was tough. It went like this "Holy Ghost......strong......temple.......felt......eternal.....love.......temple." Like it was pretty bad haha. But I got the gist of what they were saying and I just made up the rest. So I pretty much gave my own talk to Sister Harper haha. But yeah, church was good. It was honestly the day I needed. the rest of the week was pretty crappy. Plus I had a come to Jesus moment about how I need to be more patient with everyone, myself included. But yeah that really was all we did that day.

Also tell the girls the mongolian translation of the Book of Mormon is terrible. Like the members don't really like it at all. So I read from the English one, and then just read the Mongolian one to practice my reading speed. thats it. But yeah, trying to study the language from the Book of Mormon is a terrible idea. The language in it is so odd and it's never used in speaking. I just read these study books that have been passed down from missionary to missionary, so theres a lot of annotations and extra notes in them to help. But yeah the translation is in super old form Mongolian.

Love you all thanks for everything,

Austin

My Mongolian Grandma Pujee