New Years...

This week was pretty decent, with Christmas and New Years the celebrations were going pretty hard. People here really don't celebrate Christmas at all, but they go nuts for New Years. Absolutely crazy. But because of that, not much really happened. For New Years here, it's a family holiday. So they stay at home, or go to the countryside, with their family. And then late at night everyone goes and parties. So no one really can meet or anything like that, but we were surprisingly able to meet with some investigators this week. But because its easier for the sisters to teach women (they don't need a third person) we gave some of our new investigators to them after we taught them the first lesson. We also tried to meet with Myadag this week, so we texted her. And she said "I'm literally not able to meet, I went to Zavkhan with my family." Look that place up, it's a province where her parents live. She just lives in the city with her sister, but her parents live in the middle of absolute nowhere. It's actually pretty cool, but yeah. Stuff like that happens all the time, people just pack up and leave without saying anything. 

So after we skyped on your Christmas Eve, later in the evening we met with an investigator. Her name is Otogmaa (pronounced ahtigmaa). She is the sister of the lady we gave a blessing to a while ago. She went to church while she lived in Korea, so she has a super good background of Christ and stuff. It's pretty weird teaching people who actually know who Christ and God are, and what they are like. Everyone else we teach knows nothing about them, or sometimes have never heard of Christ. So it's pretty different. But as we taught her, she would compare a lot of what we taught with her Korean church. So it feels like we talk about religion and have a discussion more so than teaching a lesson. But we gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to pray and she was very willing to do that, so fingers crossed. If she really knew what our church was all about, she would be baptized immediately. It's hard to explain that though, it takes experiences in the church to understand what it's all about. But the meeting was really good, she really wants to know more, and I feel like that will take her somewhere. 

We also met with this brand new investigator named Bayarjargal (pronounced Bai-yer- jar-gal). She went into the English class at the church and wants to know more about our religion and get baptized. She also got a good look at Teasdale and has a huge crush on him, so there's that pushing it along haha. We met with her on Saturday and taught her the first lesson. It went really well. She is from this city called Murun, and was raised by shamans. She told us a lot about the Shaman religion and it's pretty interesting. It's very closely related to Native American stuff. She said that as a child, she was always told God was the sky. And he was always there day and night. And she was taught to pray to the sky and give some of her food and milk back to the sky to thank it for blessing her. Pretty sweet huh? It's really really cool stuff to me. It's crazy how people who still believe this still exist and practice this religion. It's really interesting. So we taught her and gave her a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet too, and during church on Sunday she was going through them again and highlighting the pamphlet. She's a super solid investigator. 

Also, at church there is this boy who is about 5 years old. And he's wild. He is always driving his mom nuts, and making her run all around to try and calm him down during sacrament meeting. During sacrament, there was a primary program, and when all the kids where giving their little testimony, he ran around and turned off all the lights in the chapel. So then his mom got up and took him out. All the parents in the room were laughing and the bishop was just dying about how crazy this kid is, they all remember raising crazy kids like him. It was hilarious, kids are awesome. 

Also, a little while ago we ran into this RM from a long time ago. He told us his wife is not a member, and he wants us to meet with her. Finally we were able to meet with her and it went pretty good. She said she has taken all the lessons before and knows a little bit about our church. But she has been busy working, but now that she has a little baby she stays at home and has a lot of time for lessons, but she couldn't come to church for some reason. But we did teach her and she seemed to understand pretty well. I'll keep you updated how this all goes. 

I don't remember if I ever told you this, I think I did, but in our ward we have a member who heads an anti corruption platform here. It's pretty cool what she does, luckily for me she speaks perfect English so we could talk politics and we both knew what we were saying. She talked about how she works with really high up people in the government and focuses on what other sectors of the government is faking things, then makes it public and forces them to correct what they do wrong. So right now she is working with this hospital and she found that they go back and re-edit papers of patients to save themselves from getting sued. It's crazy. She also owns a soap factory and makes pretty dank soaps, she gave us some. But she said that getting soap into stores here is a such a "red taped mess" and "all the bureaucrats are causing her so much grief" because of all the paperwork. It was awesome to see someone go off on bureaucratic stuff like this. Made my republican pride proud. Her and her mom live together and had us over for dinner, but it really just turned into a discussion about politics and taxes (which are 50% in this country) and everything. It was pretty awesome. 

So yesterday was New Years Eve, and the people here went hard. But we didn't have any lessons or meetings planned, so we decided to give some New Years gifts to some members. For New Years here everyone gives out gifts and presents. Kinda like Christmas, but the presents are smaller and more simple, but they mean more to the people than big extravagant presents. It's a really cool thing, something that I hope I can take home. They are so content with just being with family, they don't need anything big. The New Year's gift that everyone gives with the other gifts is mandarin oranges. Literally everyone gives them out this time of year. So we went and bought a ton, and wrapped them up with some little gifts, and ran those to some members. During this, we were walking down a ger district road and we ran into this old lady carrying some water. So we asked her if we could help her and take her water for her, so she let us. We chatted for a while, and she was just beaming that 3 American church boys would help her out. She took a picture with us and then when we reached her house, she said, "if you ever need some food or water or want to warm when you are walking around, my house is that little blue one right over there, and you are welcome any time." Really just the sweetest lady. That was probably the highlight of yesterday. 

Love you all, I'm actually super jealous of the Christmas party. Watching Josh eat that aaruul was freaking hilarious. Finally you are all understanding what I have to eat. I eat that stuff on the daily, and its not as good as the candy lol. 

Love,

Austin

 This is the lady that we helped with the water.  Look at her face. She was so happy.  She really was the sweetest lady. She was awesome. 

 Pictures from our P-Day hike last week. 

 This is right outside a members home. I just wanted to try and show you what it's like here. 

 This is real Mongolia. 

 At this sweet soup place where you cook your soup in front of you with whatever you want. Kinda like pho.  It's called a hot pot restaurant.

 This is the New Years guy.  Kinda like Santa, but not really.  More like Father Winter or something. 

On the frozen river. It was so cold.

By the frozen river.  It was so eerie.  It was perfectly quiet and the light was flickering. It felt like a movie.