Boots with the Fur...

September 19, 2018

Boots with the Fur...

So this week was pretty great. Super cold though. That honestly sucks, we read the sign in the city and it said -13 Celsius. We couldnt read the rest of the writing to know what it means, but yeah, its minus 13 here, maybe at night. But still, pray for me. Its cold. But regardless, this week has been awesome. So here's my week:

Wednesday: Started out by teaching with Rand again. The kids wanted to see pictures of where I was from, so I showed them pictures of Tahoe and it blew their minds. Made me miss Tahoe though, I cant wait to be back paddle boarding around that lake. But teaching was super fun, the kids their are really funny, and know English really well. It was my last time teaching with Rand, they found a person for him to teach with who is allowed at that school legally haha. Then we went to the boot guy. He is a member in our ward, his name is Altansukh. So he actually makes shoes and boots for a living. We went to his house, and he had us come into his shoe shop. He sat me down and measured my whole foot, in every possible dimension. Measured my leg and everything and essentially told me "i am about to make you the most dank winter boots on the planet, get ready." I had him put some cool mongolian things called ulzii. If you look it up, and go to google images, it looks like those pictures. But its the fourth one, the curved edges means its male, and the sharp edges mean female. It represents infinity, and everyone puts them on their homes and things. And he also is putting a yin yang on them too, which to mongolians is two whales swimming with each other. Pretty neat stuff. And he is putting thick fur on the inside too and making them super nice with a thick sole, and super rigid brown leather. Sorry for this tangent, but these are going to be so freaking cool. After that we met with Chuka and her granddaughter. It went well, she is just super shy still. But Chuka teases her all the time, so I think she is a super lively girl when she is comfortable, but she is learning and its going well.

Thursday: We got up and left the apartment pretty quickly today. We had a meeting with huslenzaya, and she lives way in the mountains and she likes to meet early in the morning. But it went really well. Her grandma isnt doing the best. She hasnt been able to go to church ever since her husband died because she cant sit for long, and she cant hardly walk. So she asked us to give her a blessing, and after the lesson we did. It was an awesome experience. She was so grateful and she was tearing up (huge thing for mongolians, they are all about toughness here, and no one cries unless its super strong emotions, they see crying as being weak, pretty interesting culture fact). But she was super thankful and it made the whole experience that much better. After that, we hustled down the mountain and back to the city for our district meeting which went well. It was the last time the mega district will be together. Transfers are splitting everyone up. After that though, we met with Adzaya. It was a good meeting, I was able to teach pretty much the whole thing. I've noticed my language has gotten exponentially better which has been a huge blessing. Then we met with Myadag which went awesome. After the lesson she asked "so where can I go to institute? and take church english classes? and where can i get an English Book of Mormon to read side by side with my mongolian one?" I dont know about anyone else, but i wasnt asking these questions when I was 17. She is so involved in the gospel, its honestly a super cool thing to see this happen. After that we went to this grimy little mongolian food place called a tsani gazar, it means tea place, but you get food from them. And it really hit me how cool this place is. Just sitting in a restaurant chatting with the women cooking food, having them sass each other. No where else in the world will you get this. Its awesome. I love it

Friday: So it was pretty crazy because of English and stuff. So I was with Elder Tuckett because of switches. But we got out early again to help some of the mission department shut down this apartment. The church is selling an old apartment that the missionaries used, so we had to strip it of everything. Also it was so freaking cold that day too. We had on sweaters and our fleece jackets. I cant believe how cold it already is. Its a bit ridiculous if you ask me. So we did that, then I met up with Elder Ponton, my english teaching companion, and we went to our school. Teaching works like this, they assign us classes, usually four. We meet with them every other week. So we teach two classes a day, and they rotate every other week. We get up and try and help them with speaking practice. Most can all read well, they just cant speak that good. So its pretty fun. Then we got back with our companions and we went to dinner. A member in our ward wanted to feed us so we went to her house. She is 19 and the only member of her whole family and she is goinig on a mission, and she lives in her own little house. Its nuts how fast people have to grow up here. But she cooked us and the elders who came with us food and it was a fun time. I went outside to use the bathroom and I looked up and saw the sunset and it hit me again how awesome this whole experience is. Its such a trip. I love it here so much. All the green hills and gers and wood fences and blue skies. Its so surreal. After the meeting though we left and the pollution has officially hit. It looks like super bad fog. Pretty nasty, we have air filters running full time at our apartment now

Saturday: So woke up and there was a country wide power outage. Go communism again. Literally the entire country lost power at the same time lol. And it was out for 5 hours. So we lost hot water too. But thats okay. The whole city shut down because of it though. But we went to go fill the font for the baptism, and our church had no water at all. So we had to move the baptism to the BZ building. We had some missionaries who lived closer go fill the font there and we got some snacks and other stuff. Then we went to the church and set up. Not too many people from the ward came because it is so far away, but some super good people did come. It was an awesome service. She had me baptize her, and when she came back up out of the water she had the biggest smile on her face and she was so happy. It was pretty sweet.

Sunday: At church Myadag and Huslenzaya got confirmed. They both were so excited for that, and they are both so involved in church. Its really cool to see people like that who just learned about the church. And we got a new PI, he is related to a church member, and he is really interested. He is about 16. After church we went to Huslenzayas house to give her grandma the sacrament. When we got to the house hulenzaya's mom told us to come in and she fed us some really good soup. We chatted for a bit. The culture here is honestly the coolest. Everyone is so welcoming and always treats you so well inside their homes. So we eventually gave her the sacrament and she was super grateful again. So Sunday was a great day.

Monday: So Rand had school again, but he was teaching with Crofts. His new companion starting Friday coincidentally. So I was with Cox, and we got some stuff ready for zone conference. I got my hair cut, dont talk to me about it. It was terrifying. Then we got some language books copied and I got an English Book of Mormon to give to Myadag. Then we went shopping to get some stuff. There is this really cool store here that has people that live out in the middle of nowhere send thier crafts, and traditional Mongolian stuff to them and they sell it, then the artisans get some money too. Then we went to go get some food, and funny enough I ran into Myadag. She just stopped me and said hi and we chatted for a bit, so that was pretty funny. And that was really all we did.

Tuesday: Today was our zone conference, really thats all we did. It was 6 hours long. So yeah. I even talked to Sister Harper and she said "yeah it was a long time to sit." But we had the area president come and that was neat.

Wednesday: So Rand had MLC with Cox's companion, so Cox and I were together. We had some service. We helped this lady move this huge thing in front of her ger door, so she can walk into that first and shake off the snow before going into her home. And we moved so much scrap metal and wood. It was seriously more like work than service haha. But it was fun to do something physical like that. Then we went and got some chores done. Like buying some stuff, we heard it was going to snow soon. Turns out it would snow at 8 pm. Go team. Later that night though we taught english again and it went well. She said she has a friend who wants to learn english (maybe some church lessons too) who other missionaries can teach.

but yeah so its snowing right now. and its 30 degrees. go team. we are all wearing parkas and beanies and its cold but pretty fun. Love you all so much!!!

Love, Austin

A member that we met with had this picture. I could look at it all day. It's so freaking cool. I'm pretty sure this is the members grandma as a little girl.

Our P-Day last week at the abandoned amusement park.

The views from the bus stop. It's so beautiful here.

District Meeting.

There was some serious training going on.

Myadag's baptism.

So there is a family on the left, then Elder Rand, me, and Myadag, and another family, then the girl in the flannel is a member that we meet with. She is 19 and the only member of her family. She is the one that we helped with her mission papers and who fed us dinner this week. These guys are awesome.