The Boys and I Built Some Homes...

August 27, 2019

The Boys and I Built Some Homes...

This week was really good, we stayed really busy and were able to get out and try and find some Less Active members. With that, and the ger project going on, we have been really busy and it feels like I am actually working a real job. It's going to be pretty crazy when school starts up next week. Trying to fit all this in during school will be really interesting. But I'm having a good time out here, it's been super fun this week being able to interact with so many families while helping them build their homes. There are some super cool, interesting people here. It's cool to talk to them and get their perspective on the world.

So last Tuesday we went out and did the ger project again. We first went to an old ladies home and were going to help her out, but the sisters ended up staying with her and we went to another house. But this grandma invited us to her house and made us some milk tea (it's the staple drink here and it's really good they just sometimes have green tea in it). This time it had green tea, and I thought the sisters would say something because they are Mongolian and fluent, but they didn't so we were just waiting around with this tea while she was in the house. She left for a second to throw out the dirty water, and we just scrambled so fast and dumped the tea back into the thermos. It was hilarious, I don't think I've moved that fast my whole mission. It made her super happy that we liked her tea though, she assumed we drank it really fast. We left right after this and were dropped off out in this field in the middle of a ger district. The field was huge though, it felt like the countryside, at least the family said it reminds them of the countryside. We got there early in the morning and met the family. It was a young couple and their 2 little kids who were super cute. Their daughter asked where we were from and insisted that I was Japanese after I told her I was from America. She said there is no way I'm from America. While we would build their ger she would walk up to me and ask me "Are you really from America? Like really?" It was pretty funny. The dad though was dope, and he pretty much was alone in doing it all, so having us there was a huge relief to him. We spent 6 hours with him making a new foundation and taking his home down and moving it to the new foundation. He was a super cool guy and when we finished his house we were ready to go, but our driver was at another house and would be there for another hour and a half. So the family made us some super good food with a sheep from the Gobi. They bragged a lot about this sheep, and it honestly did taste a lot better than city sheep. After dinner we sat down in the grass and just chatted for a good 45 minutes with them all. It was one of the coolest moments of my time here. The sun was going down and the fields were just really pretty. It felt like real Mongolia. Sitting in the middle of nowhere in a field, chatting with a family, eating their home made cheese. I should have taken pictures of it, but it really was the best experience.

The next day after the ger project we were on the way to service and it got cancelled. We were also on a split with Lutz for English. It was confusing but he ended up with us in a trio and he never has seen the big monastery here so we stopped by that. The Buddhist people still really interest me. It's so different than what I'm used to. It's really interesting to learn about and see first hand. So we hit that up and then dropped Lutz off at the BZ to get with his English companion, everyone saw us in regular clothes and thought we were tryna flex by wearing them to the church lol. I thought it was pretty funny. We went home and put on our church clothes then went out to find some people our bishop thought it would be good to meet with. We went deep into the ger district and tried finding the person's house. Somehow we managed with the lack of addresses here and found his lot. We opened up the fence and boom it's empty with 2 ger pads on the ground. Literally they packed up and left without telling anyone. The classic Mongolian story. So we ran through our ward list which is a fat stack of papers. We did find someone who lived pretty close so we decided to give them a try. We walked to their street and tried looking for their house but his lot literally didn't exist. The numbers just skipped right over his and we couldn't find anything. We searched and asked and still nothing. As we were looking for the house some guy saw us and asked to take a picture with us. He didn't even use his own phone, he had us take it on ours and then never asked for us to send it to him lol. He was nice though. But we searched for a good couple of hours and found nothing so we figured we took enough L's for the day, and we had to meet with our bishop, so we left and came back to the city. We did some more LA finding another day and the same thing happened again. We searched for hours for one building and when we found it I got so stressed to knock on a door. I have never done it before so I was stressed. I knocked on it and the guy on the list didn't live there sadly but it was funny how stressed I was looking back.

There was a cool thing that happened when we were at the church. We had a meeting set up but got canceled on, so we were just relaxing and cooling off for a bit in the church when the doorbell rang and 2 women walk in and say they are interested. It blew my mind. So we talked with them for a while and got their information and told them some basic stuff but didn't teach a lesson. Just chatted. They didn't come to church on Sunday because they got sick, but when I called they said they were super interested still. It's crazy to me still how people here come looking for us, even though we can't go looking for them in the traditional way. Pretty neat.

So we did service again yesterday at the ger project. We got put with this super cool family who had some neighbors also doing the new ger stuff. So we bounced back and forth between two homes. The neighbors were a bunch of 40 year old dudes who were super funny. They were blown away I could speak Mongolian too. I think they were all nomads before moving to the city. They built the ger in the traditional way and they spoke differently than normal. There was like 8 of them and we threw their ger up so quick. It felt like working with 8 Dad and Eastons. It was cracking me up. So us and the guyss got their ger built in probably a record time and then came over to the families ger and literally lifted the whole skeleton up and onto the new foundation. Normally you take it all down and then set it back up but with all of us we just lifted the whole thing. It was cool to see how helpful they are to their neighbors here. While we were putting their ger up their wives were shoving food in our faces telling us to eat more because we are working and they are so grateful that we could help them. It hit me that I was actually in Mongolia when I was doing this. I was in the middle of a ger district, talking to and understanding these dudes, building a home. The whole thing was a really cool experience for me. They were really kind and treated me like another mongolian person. We left the boys and went to another ger that was owned by a Kazakh family. They were super cool, and made some awesome food for us too. The grandpa thought I was a Mongolian tribe that is made of white Russian looking people haha. We talked a lot with that family out in their lot while they cooked food for us. Their kids were playing around in a half built cinder block home and their stove was a wood burning oven next to the cinder block house. It was crazy, it's just a whole new level of living that I still can't comprehend that it exists. I talked a lot with them. They were some of the nicest people I've ever met. I can't put all this into words I wish I could. We moved on to the last ger and it was in a lot with 2 gers. They were all relatives which was fun. After putting theirs up, they invited us in for food and drinks. They had some aaruul (the spoiled milk curd) drying on the roof of the ger and they gave us some. It was actually really good, I think it's growing on me lol. They were from a place by Kazakhstan and it was cool hearing about their story. They also had the cutest kids too. They were really fun to talk to and get to know. Sorry that was rushed, I just tried to cram in a lifetime of stories into a paragraph.

Okay so last thing. Our bishopric asked us to start teaching piano lessons so that when leave the ward people can play hymns. I posted a schedule of when we will teach on our ward Facebook page and then someone screenshotted it and put it on the Mongolian church page. Yes the page that every member in the country is a part of. Long story short I've been getting messages for 2 days now from random people I don't know, and the entire Mongolian church membership commented that they are going to show up. I'm pretty excited. We are having 2 lessons a week, and hopefully we can get a musically cultured church out here. Music really changes sacrament meetings and it can bring the spirit really powerfully. I'm pretty stoked for this. Whole sqaud will be playing piano before they know it. Love you guys.

Working on the ger project. Helping to set up the new barrier and heating system.

The family cooking food for us.

The Kazakh family. They literally have nothing but they are the kindest and sweetest people. Like some of the best people I have met. So willing to share whatever they had with us.