Your Ping Is No Match For My Pong...

This week was pretty good, the work was pretty slow and it was just super cold which made this week pretty tough. Not honestly too much happened though this week. We are on break from teaching now. Starting yesterday, our school is out until about the 22nd of February. It's because of the for the lunar New Year.  It's called Tsagaan Sar. Teaching English was really nice because it gave us something to do all the time. And without it, it's pretty hard to feel productive. But even with all that, we still found a new investigator this week which was honestly a huge blessing. Having the sisters in our area is nice, but pretty hard. We had to give them a lot of the people we teach, so we are down to like 3 people to work with right now. A couple of them are pretty hard to meet with and are not really progressing, but we still meet with them if we can. What's good though is the 2 girls we used to teach, Cici and Bayarjargal, are getting baptized this Saturday. It's pretty cool to know I had a little hand in that. So things are still happening which is good. But yeah, that's really all the new news. 

Last week we taught for the last time until the 22nd. It went pretty well. Our school changed though so we are teaching more young people. They are all 17/18 instead of 18/19. It may not seem that big of a difference, but it feels way different teaching them. Teaching the older students felt like I was just hanging out with my friends, but with the younger kids it seems like they should be in middle school haha. It's weird how 1 or 2 years difference gives it that different of a feel. But it still went really well. Teaching is still pretty fun, but it's really different than it used to be. 

So during mutual this week we rolled out the church ping pong table. Let me tell ya, it was nuts. The kids here love ping pong, so they went wild when they realized we could play. There is one girl who is 13, and she is super good friends with us (Teasdale and I) and she found out Teasdale is leaving the next day to go to his new ward. She doesn't really have friends in her ward, so when she found out Teasdale was leaving she got super sad and started to cry a little. It was pretty sad to see, so Teasdale wrote her a little note which was nice of him. So to try and lighten the mood, we played ping pong like crazy. We were going nuts the whole time. Some of the kids are actually pretty good. They all hold their paddles like the Korean people, so I really think there is something to that. But yeah, Ping Pong was super fun. After a while, we had our lesson and then we had to hustle off to a meeting with a member. This guy served his mission a while ago, and his companion at one point taught him how to make legit tacos. So he and his wife have us over sometimes for tacos. He makes legit pico de gallo and I almost cried when I ate it. It was so fresh. 

We have also been saving up our little tiny Mongolian bills here for a while. Anything 100 tugriks or less. Turns out saving money works. We saved up enough in 1 month to buy 2 pizzas and a ton of soda, so all the people who pitched in came over for a pizza party. It was pretty fun. After this though, we met with Battsetseg, the anti-corruption lady in our ward. It went really well, her mom talked to us a lot about missions, and the church in Mongolia. She brought up the point that rich people, and super prideful people, are the ones who never join the church, or if they do join, they fall away. She said that they are too focused on their own lives and their own possessions that they don't give any time to God, and they forget about Him in their life. So she told us to avoid pride when we go home, and remember all the humble Mongolian people that we have met and taught. 

Our new investigator is a super cool dude. His name is Shinee (pronounced Sheen-ay) He is 27, and wants to learn English fluently so he can be a tour guide in the Summer. Right now he doesn't work, so he is studying English like a mad man so he can get good at English. He told us "I usually sleep 4 hours a day so I can study more." So talk about will power and grit. He's a really good guy, and came to the church English classes and wants to learn more about the church. We teach him in English, his understanding is pretty dang good. It's weird to teach someone in English, but it's pretty nice because I can say perfectly  what I want to say haha. He is a super good guy, he struggles coming to church though which is tough. He will come along though I'm pretty sure. 

This week we also met with a less active member named Norjmaa. This meeting really hit me. I can't really describe what it was like, but it changed my perspective on everything, and I don't know why it took me 1 year in the country to learn this, but I'm glad it finally hit me. So Norjmaa is the sweetest lady ever, she is about 50 years old. She called us and wanted us to come over and talk to her, which was pretty odd considering she was less active. So we met her at a bus stop and walked with her to her house. On the walk over I was getting to know her and learn about her life. We got to her house and it blew me away. In Mongolia there are these old Russian era buildings that people live in. They are not apartments. They are these huge cement buildings with long hallways and doors shooting off into little dormitories. They have one radiator in them and that's it. No running water, and a single lightbulb. There isn't a word for them in English, but in Mongolian they are called нийтийн байр. We got to her house and found that she lives in one of these. Her little room is 10 feet by 15 feet and she has a single mattress in it and that's it. Literally that is it. Her radiator is turned way down because it would cost too much for her to have it on higher, so we all had to wear our coats because it was so cold. So I walked in there with her and my heart broke, and then she pulled out these crackers and cookies for us to eat. A lady who has nothing, no job or income, spent her own money to give us really nice food. And then it really hit me again. So I asked her about her family and showed her a picture of mine, and she told me all about her family. She was married but her husband passed away a while ago, and all her kids also passed away. So she has no one. And when she told us this, my heart really just broke. I can't really describe anymore about it, you really have to experience it to understand it all. She told us that she found God through the scriptures and wants to come back to church, and that's why she is meeting with us. She did come to church on Sunday and it was super nice to see her again. But man, it really hit me. When we left her house, I looked at Sweetwood and he just said "You know, I'm done ever complaining about anything in life." And then we walked home and had a pretty silent rest of the night. I just wish I could give her a million dollars. Life is just too unfair to people who don't deserve it. 

So yeah, that really is all we did this week. May not seem like much, but I think that the little work we are doing is having some good consequences. It's hard to see that sometimes and that's the real struggle of this mission. But it's all going good. Love you guys

Austin

 They make super intricate ice sculptures here during the winter.  Pretty sweet. 

Again, that's not snow.  It's pollution. 

This lady is Battsetegs mom.  Super nice lady. 

Elder Sweetwood