Your Commander Personality Is Showing...

This week was super good, honestly probably the best week of my mission. We were mad busy the whole time and got some new investigators and met some sweet people. The biggest news of the week is that our mission is getting smartphones soon. We got the email from Salt Lake, and they are figuring out when to start implementing them. I think they are saying they want to have them within 4 weeks. So we will see how that goes, it should be helpful with Facebook. We are kinda excited for it, but not entirely. We will see. 

So last week we had this family walk into church and want to meet with us, so we met with them last week. We thought it would just be 3 people (dad, mom, and mom's little sister). But the little sister brought her friend from school too. And he is interested in the church too. So we taught 4 people and then at the end of the lesson the mom turns to me and says "so I have another son who is at school right now who also wants to learn, and then my brother and sister in law also want to learn, but they are coming back from the countryside right now." So there is like 7 people we are going to teach, it's pretty crazy. They are super nice people and found the church in a pretty cool way. The mom's old school teacher is a member. And this member just invited her to church one day and now they are taking the lessons. Then later in the week we got a call from the mom's sister (she is 17) and she tells us that she needs some school help. So I thought she was referring to some English help. So we met her at the church and when we sit down she says "so I've heard about this BYU Hawaii place, how do I get there?" So we tell her and she starts asking about scholarships and majors for her. She is super motivated which is crazy to see from a 17 year old. But she is really serious about getting baptized and becoming a member. She also asked about a mission and when she could serve one. So right now she is planning to serve a mission and go to BYU-H. Its crazy. We only taught her once and she is already wanting to be a part of all this. It's really cool to see. 

We also met with Hulan and Enkhjin this week. They are the two girls we have been teaching. We taught them about the commandments and after the lesson they asked me "How do we prepare to be baptized?" I asked them if they wanted to get baptized first but they said they didn't feel ready yet and then they asked me that. So we talked a lot about how to feel the spirit and put yourself in a mindset to feel the spirit. We read a lot of scriptures and they are super sincere about this and they said they would do anything we ask them to do, they want to get baptized they said, just don't feel super ready yet. I really hope they feel it soon. They are trying to get an answer more than most people ever try, I hope it comes quick. Then after the lesson we just chatted for a good 30 minutes about school and jobs. It really feels like I am teaching my friends and sharing the gospel with them, rather than just being this teacher person who comes in, teaches, and leaves. They are super awesome people and I just really hope their answer comes. 

I was in a taxi this week and the guy and I were talking, and he was pretty hard for me to understand. When it gets like this you just kinda nod your head and say "uh huh uh huh" a lot. So I was doing that, then he really just spoke fast and with a weird accent and I didn't understand anything he said. Before I realized what he said, I found my self saying "yeah." Then after I said that I realized that he asked me if I had a wife in America. And that she couldn't come to Mongolia because of Visa issues lol. So for the rest of the taxi ride I had to make up this whole story of me having a wife in America who can't come to Mongolia with me. I was in too deep to back out, so I had to run with it. Turned out to be a pretty good story I made up.

We watched conference with all the missionaries in the city. Conference was awesome, I really liked President Nelsons talk about watching for your families. It was one talk that just hit me really hard for the first time in a while. It was super relevant and applicable. Plus he just didn't cut corners which I appreciated. I liked how he said exaltation is a family matter. It was pretty cool.

We had a potluck while we were watching General Conference.  I made the famous Schofield cheese ball.  It cost me about $15 to make.  A brick of cream cheese is about $6. I set myself up with my cheese ball and my Ritz crackers, that's the only cracker they have here, and I went to town.  President Harper walks in and says, "wow, that looks good." A few minutes later Sister Harper walks in and says that she was impressed. Pretty soon I had a ton of missionaries gathered around my desk trying to get in on my cheese ball.  It was awesome.     

I taught English yesterday and when we walked in my students got a test back from their teacher. After the teacher left I looked at the test and realized there were a ton of grammar mistakes in it, and the English made no sense at all. I myself would have done really bad on it. I got pretty fed up with it because that's just super unfair and super mean to have students take tests with incorrect questions and answers. So I took the tests in to the headmaster's office and dropped them on her desk (looking back I probably shouldn't have done this, but it felt pretty cool). And I told her that these tests were very poorly written and it's extremely unfair to have students take tests like this which is causing their grades to drop. So this lady then calls in the English Department Head, and she talks to us. She was a bit perturbed because she is the one who proofreads all the tests, and when I told her they were wrong she got pretty mad. But I had to be a voice for the voiceless, so I kept going on about it. Long story short, at the end I offered myself and Scrimsher to proofread all the tests and all the books and all the handouts the school makes and make sure they are all correct before they are approved. They were pretty appreciative of that, and maybe we will start to do that. But yeah this was maybe one of the coolest things I've done, it should have been on TV or something.

Yesterday night we met with Baljinyam. He is the investigator who has a member wife. They are really the best people. They are super kind and welcoming to us, and they are both trying to learn more about the gospel. Tsetsrel (his wife) has been reading the general conference talks and told me that she found many answers to her prayers in conference. And she said that she could feel her testimony growing through that. Pretty neat stuff. We taught them a lesson and talked a lot about the gospel and how to come to know its true. Baljinyam said he wants to know all we have to teach him before he makes a decision about this, which I can respect a lot. He said if he is going to do this he is going all in, so he might as well know a lot about it. The lesson was really good, we used a lot of scriptures and helped them understand them. His wife actually ended up teaching him most of the time haha. He asked us what some scriptural terms meant like baptism by fire. Now that was pretty tough to explain, then he asks me "what is the Lamb of God? What does that mean?" So I told him its representative of Jesus, and he asks why they use a lamb. So I had to flipping explain the whole dang Law of Moses, in Mongolian. It hurt my brain bad, and it was super tough, but eventually we got it across haha. Most Mongolians have never been introduced to the Bible, so their knowledge of Jesus Christ is very limited. We had a good time too with them trying to understand everything I was trying to say. We were laughing a lot. They are just an awesome family. Such spiritual powerhouses.

Last thing, earlier this week this lady calls me who I didn't know and we start talking and eventually she asks me for my name, and she starts dying laughing. She says "I thought you were Mongolian!!!" That was funny, but she is a member who has a friend that used to be less active and now wants to serve a mission, so we are gonna meet with her this week too. Things are going good here. Mongolia is awesome, I never thought I could love a people as much as this. And I never thought sharing the gospel could bring so much love. They people here are awesome, I'm so glad I got to serve here. 

-Austin

 These are from the window at Scrimshers apartment. 

 Ponton was super alloyed with our dinosaur of a computer at our school.  He took it apart to try and fix it.