Call me Багшаа (teacher)...

This week went pretty well, it went by really fast. A lot happened but not really too much to write about. My companion started teaching English last Monday so I'm was with a Mongolian named Dulguun a lot of last week. He's a really cool guy to be with plus he helps my mongolian a lot. I'm sure you saw on Facebook but my school started back up yesterday. It's a funny story, we were supposed to start on the 15th but we got a call in the morning an hour before classes start asking if we can begin then. So we ran out and got there just in time. The classes went really well though. We are teaching all the brand new freshmen, and they are really good students. They all know English better than the last years students so the classes are a lot more fun. I'm really glad to be teaching again, it keeps me really busy and gives me a purpose that I can see easier out here. Because of the transfers though Scrimsher and I are the only ones at the university, so we are teaching the full 12 hours a week. I'm pretty stoked for it, we will know all the English students at the school too so it's going to be really fun. It is getting really cold really quick though. Summer is over which is pretty depressing, the Fall weather is nice. It's hard knowing it's only going to last maybe a month and then it's winter. But its seriously dropped from a high of 85 to a high of 60 in one day. Welcome back to Siberia I guess.

So this week we had a ton of appointments scheduled but most of them fell through. We did luckily have a couple though that went really well. We are teaching and guy named Batraa who is our age. He has been an investigator for a while now, but he's a really cool kid. The lesson we taught went very well and he said that he understands it all and felt good during it. Honestly can't ask for more than that. Later in the week we had a meeting with a girl who is deaf, she was recently baptized in our ward. Our ward is the ward all the deaf people go to because of the amount of sign language translators. The lesson was very different from what I'm used to, but it was really cool. This girl went progressively deaf and because of that she never really learned sign language that well because they always thought she would hear enough to speak. So now she's deaf and learning sign language, but she can read a little bit which helps. She was taught very basic principles before she was baptized, but we didn't know that. So we went into this lesson and tried teaching the normal stuff. She didn't really understand because the signs were different than what she knew (we had a translator). So we wrote our a lot of stuff on the board and kept it really simple. It was cool to see what we both thought the most important principles of the Gospel, specifically the restoration are. We focused a lot on the fact of the reality of God and Christ, that prophets get real revelation, and the the book of Mormon teaches about Christ and how he loves us. And that was basically the entirety of what we taught. It was a really cool lesson to be a part of. And now I'm learning some basic sign language so I can communicate my testimony without a translator. It's honestly easier than spoken mongolian, it's a fun thing to learn though.

I was with Dulguun one day and in the afternoon we had a lesson scheduled with these 2 girls we are teaching. We showed up to ones house and both were there so they invited us in their ger and we found that their moms weren't there so we couldn't teach them. I left them the pamphlets and just asked about church and stuff. Turns out they are going to seminary every morning, hearing that blew me away. But they are doing good. They come to piano too and are trying to take advantage of everything they can. It's cool to see such young people with such big motivation.

Piano lessons are going awesome for everyone. A lot of the students are making some crazy fast progress. I think we should be able to have at least a few play in sacrament meeting by the end of the month. We are giving them some pretty difficult songs but somehow they learn them within a week, so we are running out of ideas for music to give to them. It's really cool to see and be a part of this. Seeing the progress of your students is really cool. With piano lessons though my Mondays and Fridays have turned into teaching days. Basically I get done with school and then get back with my companion and grab some food, then go set up and teach piano and then go home. It takes the whole day but is really fun. It's a cool service we can give to people that will have some lasting impacts. I'm hoping it stays going strong.

That honestly was the whole week. Sorry it's pretty boring. We had some other missionary meetings but those were just the usual, deal nothing much to talk about with those. Transfers are this Thursday, so I will keep you posted in case I move, I don't think I will though. Love you guys.

Austin