Working Man...

This week went really good. We were super busy with service this week. We wore service clothes more than church clothes this week actually. It felt weird to have a collared shirt on during church on Sunday. But it was really fun to be able to help out with service this week, being able to work with my hands was nice. The weather was good for the days we had service so being outside was awesome, but the other days it was pouring rain. The sewers actually overfilled. And yes it's as gross as it sounds. But on the sunny days I got a little sunburnt, but honestly being able to go home feeling the sun on my face was awesome. It felt like I was just getting back from a day at Tahoe.

The bulk of service this week came pretty unexpectedly. The church is hosting a ger project. In March BYU students came here and set up a few gers with their new design to see how they handled the winter with the cold and smoke. They worked better than expected so they came back now to set up about 200 of them. Traditionally the ger just has a felt layer then a canvas shell. The felt holds the heart really well, but it requires them to burn coal in their ger and that makes the air inside the ger super toxic. So the BYU engineering students created a new design for the ger using a radiant barrier. It's pretty much an aluminum coated bubble wrap. They put it around the ger outside then the felt and beneath the canvas and it traps heat super well. And instead of a coal heated stove they use a small electric heater. They tested it out in March and the heat loss was only about 5 percent. So it's pretty effective, plus the air inside the ger is around 200 percent less toxic. The whole thing is pretty well thought out. The church hopped on board with this to try and eliminate the coal pollution in the city, this year they are only making 200 gers but next year they are doing 10,000. The goal is that after the 10,000 next year, hoping that other companies with see this and donate to the cause. So, the man in charge came here and asked us to help him out. We went one day when we were assigned and we helped them cut out the shapes of the radiant barrier to fit the ger. The youth who went to FSY and were still in the city showed up to help. So we chilled with them while we cut out these huge pieces. It was fun to see all the people I knew there. Enhjin, the girl I baptized, was there, and it was fun to see how she was doing and see she was still involved and active. We helped out for about 5 hours cutting, rolling, and packaging up these rolls of insulation stuff. Then on Saturday we came back and helped build 2 model gers. The families that we are helping came and watched to see how to build them, because next week we are going with a family and helping them put their ger up and set it all up. So we spent a good long time building a ger taking it down and building it again to show the families who came how to put on the new radiant barrier. 

Earlier in the week we got a call from Sweetwood saying he needs some help with service. We went out to the guy we dug the hole for and helped him put up his ger. We got out there and the weather was super nice. We got pretty sunburnt, but it was really fun to put up a ger with him. I took some cool pictures, out there it really feels like the countryside. All the Mongolians say it's exactly like the countryside, so I guess I can say I've been to it. On the way back though we ran into this super traditional Mongolian guy who walked up to us and all the people around us and passed around his snuff bottle. It's a super Mongolian tradition to show your respect for someone. So it was surprising he passed it to us. It was pretty cool though, he was a really nice guy.

The sisters in our ward had a baptism this last week and their investigator is deaf. We went to the baptism and it was really cool to see how much she believed this gospel. When she bore her testimony it was really cool to see that she believed the same things as everyone else, despite her disability. It was just really cool to me to see. 

Really that was it, we were just super busy with the ger project stuff. Last night though we thought an earthquake was happening. This huge lightening storm came out of no where and it was right above our building. The whole building would shake when the lightening would hit. It was pretty intense, so I stayed up for a bit to watch it. It was really cool, something we don't have in America at all. That's the week though. Love ya guys.

Austin

Pictures from last weeks P-day hike

 Shaman worship site that we found on our hike.

 Setting up the get at the place where we dug the bathroom pit. We helped pour the cement pad that the get is sitting on as well. 

 The wooden structure of the ger is held together with rawhide.  They don't use nails or bolts.  The string rawhide through the holes and tie knots in the ends.  The rawhide dries and shrinks and holds it tight.  Pretty cool. 

Riding in the back of the truck with the ger supplies. 

 Cutting and prepping the ger radiation barrier.  After his talk about the sacredness of the sacrament, Elder Holland would probably frown upon us doing this in the chapel, but hey, thats Mongolia. 

 Scrimsher and I taught Enhjin all of the lessons together.  It was fun to see her again. Her cousin is now interested in the church. 

 Baptism on Saturday

 Setting up the gers to show the people how to use the new system.  The girl and boy on the end live in China.  Their dad was the lead guy on the project for the church.  She swims on the BYU swim team.