I Love Mongolia...

So this week was pretty flipping sweet. First off, so I said that it was warming up last week. I lied. We went hiking last week because in the city it was pretty nice, only like -10 F. When we got in the mountains though it started to blizzard and the wind plus the cold brought it down to -40. Let me tell ya, that is an all time, completely new feel of cold. So we got to the top and found this little bowl sorta sheltered from the wind and made the biggest fire we ever have. Scrimsher and I even made a chimney out of rocks and a wind tunnel so the fire would get hotter. We made some tin foil dinners too which were nice. We took some cool pictures and as I took them (so I forgot my balaclava) my nose turned white from the cold, which is the first step in frostbite. Don't worry, I didn't get frostbite, I just sat by the fire until my nose was normal, and then went back to pictures. So I repeated this cycle for a while. Not sure if it's good for my body or not to go between such extremes, but that doesn't matter. The sun started setting and it was beautiful, probably the prettiest sunset I've seen. Then we decided to book it to the bus stop to get home. Scrimsher and I stayed behind to kick out the fire, our inner Eagles couldn't let us leave while the freaking furnace of a fire was burning on a grassy hill. So him and I ran down through the snow drifts during the sunset. It was awesome. That's something I will never forget. It's -40, we are running through knee deep snow drifts, down a mountain in Mongolia. I loved it. But yeah it was freaking cold. 

This week we met with Shinee again. At the end of the meeting he told me that when he reads the Book of Mormon and prays he feels good. And he said that he isn't really sure what it means, or if it means anything. So I explained to him how that is an answer and everything. He was super excited to hear that what he was feeling was from God. It was pretty cool. Right after meeting with him we had mutual. It was super good this week. 15 people came and some Less Active youth from my ward showed up too. It was really fun. Their leaders never come to mutual, so we really run the whole show. We played ping pong and phase 10, and taught a lesson. It was awesome to see this many kids show up. They are really different from the regular Mongolian kids, Sweetwood and I were talking about it. They are more happy and just different. It's a cool thing to notice. Mutual is also pretty sweet because the kids will put up with our trash Mongolian and talk to us, so we get a ton of time to speak and practice more. I think we talked in only Mongolian for about 2 hours straight which may not seem long to people, especially dad who was all Portuguese, but it's the longest we can usually go here without having people want to talk English with us. So it was nice. 

This week I had MLC. It's like zone conference but only for people in leadership in the mission. It's nice because we get to actually speak our mind on stuff and get to share our opinion freely on things. It feels very productive compared to zone conference. Plus it's fun to see President Harper in a new light, and get to know him better. 

The best part about this week was this though. So once a year the church sponsors a wrestling tournament. It's like church ball in the States, but way better. They rented out a sport complex and set up some mats. Members from all over the city came and wrestled each other. It was awesome. In church ball in the States people get so offended so easily when they get fouled, but here 300 pound men are freaking throwing each other around and they are smiling and laughing the whole time. I love it. So everyone who came wore the traditional Mongolian deel and hats. It was sweet. All the members loved our deels and hats. And on the walk over all the old people saw us all dressed up and got so happy and were telling us we looked awesome. It's pretty cool how accepting they are here. We are strangers to this culture and they just let us come right in and they accept us like we are one of them. It's cool. The tournament though was sick. There was traditional dancing that a member girl from my ward did it, it looked super cool. A deel competition we competed in, lost sadly. And some traditional singing. It was just so cool. I really can't put into words the whole experience. I love it here.

The Sisters in my ward also had a baptism this week. It was for this little 10 year old girl. She's super cute. So that's what the pictures are from. 

Oh, also yesterday to celebrate our year mark, we know it's late haha, we made Cafe Rio Sweet Pork salads. They were awesome, and now my apartment smells like sweet pork. Win win for me. 

Love ya,

Austin

Pictures from the Wrestling Tournament. 

 The Fox Fur Gang

Traditional Mongolian dancers.  The girl closest to me is in my ward. 

 All of the missionaries that came to the event. 

 Aren't they the cutest?

 This is my original MTC group.

All of the Elders in the entire mission.  Sister Harper just chilling with the boys. 

Mission Conference with Elder Evans from the 70.

Original MTC group again. 

 Pictures from our freezing cold, but amazing hike. 

 Scrimsher and I 

The following pictures were posted by Austin's mission mom. Due to some immigration concerns, she has not been able to post any for a while.  These are from November to now. 

Wrestling tournament videos

Hiking videos