Solstice...

This week went decent. Transfers with a new area and a new companion.  I am with Elder Sorenson now. I moved into my new apartment which was definitely a down grade from the last place. The one I am in now has been in the mission for a long time and they are actually in the process of selling it to get us a nicer functioning apartment. The ward I am in is bigger than the last one which is really helpful, and we have a lot of work we are doing that keeps us busy which has been a blessing. We have a few investigators who are progressing really well. Other than that just a normal week. We had a departing missionary devotional and President and Sister Harper spoke. It will be really weird with them gone. Everyone is kinda feeling it right now, but President Harper was probably the best mission president for this mission. It's going to be weird with him gone but I am excited for President Hansen. 

So last week I met that leather guy. So earlier this week I went back to naraantuul and he was super excited to see me back. We chatted a bit about work and stuff and then I gave him my leather and fur and he was blown away. He said "wow who picked this out for you??" And I told him I found it myself and he was just shocked I knew the difference between crappy and good leather. It was funny watching him get so excited over being able to use some good quality leather. I passed him off my Book of Mormon and he said to come back the next day. So we showed up the next day and he was just super stoked to see me again. He said "it turned out amazing you're gonna love it." He totally went above what I had expected. And he also said there was extra leather so he made me a wallet for free. It was awesome. This guy is literally my best friend now lol. He's super nice though, he just sells his leather stuff on this cardboard box outside naraantuul. It's pretty humbling to see, he really has nothing and yet he's one of the most happy old guys I've met. 

So one of my old companions Elder Teasdale was leaving to the countryside and he told me that a member from Sukhbaatar wanted to meet with him before he left and he wanted him to bring his old companion. So Teasdale and I went there with our comps and had some food. It was a super fun meeting. We played some uno and chatted for awhile. It was super fun to be meeting with him and his family again. I just really felt like a missionary again. It felt just real missionary work, it was a cool feeling. 

We also met with an investigator. His name is Delgersaihan and hes 30ish and has a family. He is very interested and has started taking the lessons last year but now he is a lot more serious about it. He is just the most sincere guy I've ever met. We taught him and he was very receptive. He is getting baptized this Saturday too which is pretty cool to be a little part of. 

So when I picked up my scripture case Sorenson and I were walking back to the bus stop and we had this lady yell at us and say "hey!" and hit our bags. So we stopped and talked with her. She says "are you two missionaries? You look like missionaries with your white shirts and stuff?" So we tell her yeah we teach English but also participate in church by teaching people about our church and religion. And she got super excited and started talking about how she used to live in the Philippines but couldn't go to church there and so when she got back here she wanted to find some people from our church to meet with. So she literally just ran into us in a super small unfrequented area of the city. We talked and exchanged information and then she called her kids who live in America and she says "hey talk in English!" So we chatted with her kids a while. They live in LA and are pretty cool people, and they asked what church we are from and they knew who we were haha. But they were really grateful that their mom found us. She ended up going to church too, just another ward. But she is super gung ho about it all. Pretty crazy. Then later that night at a bus stop we ran into a guy who stopped us and spoke in fluent american english and asked us who we were. He said he met with people like us a while ago. This guy lived in Chigaco for a while. He is a younger guy and super dope. We talked about music festivals for a while and he invited us to go to one here lol. We wish so bad. Maybe we could pitch it as being ministering to an investigator. Fingers crossed. 

We met with a person who has been taking Skype lessons with a Mongolian sister in America. He is super ready to be baptized. So his wife is a member but they live in Spain because he does the circus there. He doesn't know spanish though, so he wants to be baptized here. We met with him and reviewed the stuff and then they went to the countryside. Luckily it's not that far away so we are hoping we can convince the new president to take some land cruisers out and drive us to this guy's ger and baptize him in a river. Conveniently there is a river there so it would work. Probably won't happen, but we will hopefully get one countryside visit from it. It's pretty cool stuff. 

So the water went out one day when we got home. Luckily we had some extra water in the fridge. So we each had one paper cup of water to wash our face and brush our teeth. Oh Mongolia. Never gets old. The solstice was fun though. The sun wakes us up at 4 am now, it's crazy that the sun does that. It gets dark about 10 PM too. Pretty fun. Summer is dope. 

Love you guys, 

Austin

Meeting with our friend in Sukhbaatar

 Farewell meeting with President and Sister Harper

Last apartment check with Sister Harper

 My new friend.  The leather guy at the black market.  He literally sells his stuff from this cardboard box. My scripture case cost $8.  I tried to give him more, but he wouldn't take it.  

Isn't it awesome? He also made me a wallet for free.  Everyone says that the sheep skin cover look like the book from Harry Potter. 

Check out the guy selling his rugs.  Total George Costanza. haha

 The skies here are insane.  

 So a friend of mine who is serving in the countryside sent me all of these amazing photos. So I sent him this haha.  Check out the ger in the middle of the auto repair shop. 

 These guys were advertising their hunting trips that they do. 

Just a little video of my new scripture case.