The Dream Team...

This week was honestly really crazy, there was a ton of switches that happened. So because of some visa stuff someone came into the city and one had to take his place, so because of all that a ton of people got switched around. So Quackenbush and I got separated, and I was put with a new guy still in training. I was with him for a day, and then someone else had to go home, so now I'm in a new ward and my companion is Scrimsher and we are both training the new guy right now. It's pretty flipping fun I'm gonna be honest. We are in an area that is right across the road from Sukhbaatar, the place I was in for 7 months. The apartment is right across the road from my old one too, so I'm basically living in the same place as I did before when I was in Sukhbaatar. The Jargalant ward is awesome though, I already know everyone there, and it's all ger district which I love. I'm really glad I'm able to serve here, but I am really sad I left Enkhtaivan. That was an awesome area, and all the members were my good friends. I am looking forward to this area, the people here are great, and the apartment I moved into is really nice. Scrimsher and I on the first night cut some of furniture up to make some new desks and stuff for the place. It's been fun so far.

When I was still with Quackenbush we had a really busy week planned. We had a meeting with Turbold planned, and we were going to go to his house which is right next to ours. He called and said he got caught up and work and asked if we could meet at the church. We were kinda bummed because we were hoping to meet his wife and ask if she was interested. We went to the church and met Turbold and found that he brought his wife too. They both work right next to the church conveniently. We chatted for a bit and got to know them better and then started teaching the first lesson. It was really cool because his wife shared some experiences about trying to find the truth. Turbold then told his wife that he had been praying all summer long to find the correct path and he feels that this is the path that God had lead him to. It was a very cool thing to teach a couple, it was only the 3rd time my whole time here I've had the opportunity. It was such a good lesson and we became really good friends with them, they are both really good people. 

In Enkhtaivan we had started mutual back up that we had going earlier in the summer. As transfers happened and people changed the mutual kinda died out, and the wards wanted it back. So we got together with some others and planned it out. For it being the first mutual in a while we had a good turnout. The kids all had fun and enjoyed the games and company. It was fun to break the ping pong stuff out again and play. 

English this week was really fun. The students all speak really good, so teaching them is alot easier and more fun. Usually the classes we teach really don't know any English, so we start at the basics of speaking and reading and pronunciation. But this year the students are way better and can converse with us. It makes the whole environment more fun when we can all speak and joke around. There was also the annual English teacher conference we attended. Scrimsher and I went together to represent the Ih Zasag University. It still feels weird to walk around and have people treat us like we are super qualified professors. It's really fun though, at the conference we attended a lot of workshops about improving our teaching skills. One person talked about using mind maps, and it threw me back to 4th grade. They kept asking Scrimsher and I about them because we are American. For some reason they thought because we came from America we know all about teaching skills and stuff. It was funny to them when we would share our elementary school experiences using all these mind maps as students. It was fun being with all the professionals though, they really treated us as equal. One guy talked about a linguistic theory he had been developing. He was attempting to prove the existence of a single language like it says in the Bible. So he went super deep and talked about consonant sounds and energy behind the expressed sounds in words across different languages. He convinced me pretty easily. It was cool to see that if you look, there are little pieces of connected language even between completely independently developed languages. Pretty neat stuff. 

Finally, even though Quackenbush and I are separated we are still teaching piano lessons. We taught on Monday and I was blown away. This one student mastered the hardest song we had printed out, and a few others were right behind him. There should be some solid hymn players here pretty soon which is exciting. Teaching piano has been super rewarding for me, I'm really glad I learned how to play. 

That's it for this week. Love yall. 

Austin 

 At the English Teachers Conference 

 Golfing on P-day

 Me and Lutz

 Quackenbush is not that into golf, but he was super happy to drive the golf cart for us. 

 Remember my apartment with the mold and the broken fridge and water issue, well this is the new place that I would have moved into before the weird transfer this week.  It is a palace. There are now four Elders that will live here. 

 Fixing the furniture in our new apartment. 

We were taking a taxi out to the golf course, but then he ran out of gas.  So we started walking and this guy picked us up and gave us a ride in the back of his truck. 

My golf game is trash.