"Catastrophe Imminent"...

Hey Mom, 

This week was good, honestly not too busy though. But somehow we stayed pretty busy meeting people. The weather here is pretty cold. The government sent out a pretty funny text the other day. It said that "a storm is coming, catastrophe is imminent, prepare yourself against this and take caution." Honestly I haven't seen any catastrophe other than my hair freezing solid when I walk outside, and my eyes water to prevent them from freezing, but then the water freezes when it touches my face. Can't really win. But it is fun, it's crazy how cold it is right now, and it's only getting colder. You walk outside and just cough and cough for like 3 minutes until your lungs get used to the cold air. It's nuts. But I think there is a correlation between the absolute cold and how many people want to meet with us haha. This week we really didn't get too many appointments.

After our P day we met with Bolorzaya, our investigator. She is doing really really good. I asked her if she wants to be baptized and she is on date to be baptized the 22nd of December. She really is just the golden investigator, it's really cool to teach people like her. We are planning on meeting with her tonight too. She just blows me away at how spiritual she is and how willing to live the gospel is. It's a pretty indescribable thing to see and be part of. But it's just so cool. 

Teaching this week was really good. I taught at the high school again on Wednesday and then on Monday I was finally able to teach at the college again. Between our holidays and stuff it was about 2 weeks without seeing those students. And funny enough, today was wear your mongolian traditional clothes to school day, I sadly didn't get the memo. But it was really cool seeing everyone dressed up. They really support their culture which is such a cool thing to see. In America it seems like no one can agree on anything, let alone agree on the American culture, but here everyone is super patriotic to Mongolia and they all really embrace their culture. In class though I taught my students "Concentration." It's that game where you have categories and if you repeat or stutter you are out. If that makes sense haha. And now literally everyone is playing it around the school lol. So it got big. Teaching again was really really nice. I missed it a lot. At our English club there was a lot more students there this time. It's really cool to help people who want to be helped. It's kinda like tutoring back in high school. The people are way more receptive. And everyone saw my Mongolian boots and couldn't stop talking about how dope they are and how cool it is that an American has some haha. The culture here is awesome, I love it so much. Whenever I get on a bus now, anyone who talks about me talks about the boots haha. 

We also helped someone in our ward put some insulation up on their house. Here they just put styrofoam on the outside of their house and it drill it into the wall. So we helped measure their stuff and cut the styrofoam. Then we put together this super sketch scaffolding. Everyone else was a bit freaked out to climb to the top (it was like 20 feet up) so i just did it. Not gonna lie, I thought i was gonna die. Every little breeze of wind made it rock back and forth haha. But I got up there and helped the guy measure and put the stuff on. It reminded me of helping dad. I'm super glad Dad taught me a thing or two about how to be a handy man, it comes in handy a lot out here. All the districts were assigned to find a service project to do as well, so our district wanted to caroling. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but we did it. So we spent literally all morning and afternoon of Saturday making sugar cookies. We made 70, so it took forever. But it was pretty fun. Got them all frosted and then went to some member's homes in our ward, and in the other ward that is covered by our district. Funny thing, the culture here is that if anyone ever knocks on your door, you let them in and give them some hot water (they only drink hot water, in the winter they drink it so "they won't freeze and die" (actual quote from a person I asked)) and some food. So when we showed up just wanting to sing and drop off a gift they didn't really know what to do haha. We sang some mongolian christmas hymns and it went well. We all had a fun time, and afterwards when it got too late we found ourselves by this frozen solid river. So of course we went skating on it with our boots. It was so freaking cold outside, but we got running up and down this river, and Teasdale and I tried to mongolian ice wrestle. Our cameras all froze solid so we didn't get too many pictures. It was just super fun, felt like out of a movie. 

Also this week I was at the market and this lady talked me into buying a russian hat. But an old man golfer style hat. They are super nice, and all the older guys here wear them. She cut the price down to a stupid cheap price so I had to do it. When I wear it though with my boots everyone thinks I'm a legit mongolian grandpa haha. Its pretty funny seeing all the looks. And one night Perry and I were going to a store to get some food, and it was -5 outside. So cold, but the cold is pretty fun now. 

This week was pretty decent though. We were able to meet with some members and one of our investigators which was nice. Hopefully we can get more meetings with our other investigators though.

Tell everyone that I love them.  Watch out for Sami for me.  Love ya guys.

Austin

Helping put the styrofoam up.  And before you comment about me being on the phone while working, I was doing District Leader stuff.  

 The text that we got that said we were going to have a catastrophe. 

 Caroling way up in the mountains on an empty road.  So pretty

 Frozen river

 The camera froze while taking this. So crazy.

 Frozen solid.

 So cold.  Also a Christmas tree.

 So they do decorate for Christmas, just no real celebrations.  They celebrate the commercial side of things.  They want to fit in with the rest of the world a bit.