Do you remember the 21st night of September?

Yeah, Crofts and I were singing that song a lot on Friday. Also, I hit my 8th month mark Monday which is crazy. Officially 33% done which sorta blows my mind. It feels like I've been here forever, but not that long at the same time. Weird stuff, but pretty neat. But yeah, not too much has happened since last p day, which was only like a few days ago. But Rand and Crofts live right above us now since transfers which is quite the party. It's fun having them in the ward. But here is what happened:

Friday: So clearly it was the 21st, so Earth Wind and Fire was stuck in my head all day. But I taught school which went really well. The kids there are super funny. It's a lot better teaching this semester than last. The kids pay attention more and actually want to learn english, where as last year they wouldn't really pay attention or anything. So it's very different, but it's super nice. The kids are way more friendly and that makes it a whole lot easier to teach them. And the way the school is set up is so we have complete control over the whole 90 minute class. So we usually help them with speaking practice, but that is super boring and hard for them sometimes. But everyone here watches NBA and listens to American Music, both of which I really like. So we usually talk about those with them, and because they are interested in it, they speak more and it's better practice. It's pretty funny to watch them try and defend why they think so and so is the best basketball player in the league right now. Teaching is honestly my favorite, I'm so glad I get to do that here. Then we went to the BZ to get some stuff from Sister Harper and really that was all we did Friday.

Saturday: So I woke up and was feeling kinda sick, but not too bad. I went to the BZ to get my new companion and trainee, Elder Perry. He is from Buffalo New York, and 18 years old. Right after that we had a lesson with Anoder and Bojinglam, it was super fun. Their aunt Pujee (member too) cooked us some super dank meat and rice. And when Bojinglam came in the room she told me "my stomach hurts like super bad" and Rand didn't hear her say that. So Rand says "you don't look too excited Bojinglam" and she immediately says "im in pain." haha it was pretty funny. But yeah that lesson was fun. Then we went back to our apartment and Perry unpacked. Afterwards, Lambert and Cox called and said they made some cookies, so we went over to their house to eat them.

Sunday: So I woke up, and I tried to speak and I couldn't lol. I totally lost my voice. Blessing and a curse. But we had church obviously. It went well, we still have no bishop though. They said we still won't have one for 2 more months which is kinda crazy to me, but oh well, things still function. But at church Chuka saw me and asked how I was doing, and I told her that I was a little sick, and with my voice that doesn't exist she said "yeah no kidding son. Here this is an old mongolian trick, take salt and put it in water and drink it and gargle it." So I tried that back at my apartment, and it worked a bit haha. At church though Chuka's granddaughter came which was awesome. She is really opening up. But no one else came, I think Myadag is in the countryside and everyone else is busy.  People came over for dinner and we just chatted and played this card game Rand taught us called Egyptian's Rat's Slap or something like that. It was pretty intense, but super fun. 

Monday: Perry had to get his blood drawn so I dropped him of at the BZ pretty early and just hung out with other elders. Then when we got back together, we went to the post office and then to lunch. After that we went back to the apartment and I called the person we were supposed to be meeting, and he said because of school and these weird review sessions they have he couldn't meet with us. Their school really throws a wrench in appointments with people, so hopefully somehow we can meet with people in between that. Then we went to Zaisan, the Russian monument, all the new people go there, so we went to the top. Too many freaking stairs, I'll tell ya that. But it was a good view of the city. And that really took up the whole day. It takes a while to get there, and traffic was horrible. But when we got back, there was like 6 people in our apartment haha. Rand has a key still and wanted to play a joke on us, but we got back too soon. So we hungout some more and it was a super nice way to relax and end the night. I also hit my 8th month mark which was pretty cool. Pretty crazy I'm already that far into my mission. 

But yeah, there's my week, or few days haha. But not too much going on, hopefully we will have some appointments soon, it's just tough for people to work around their school. Love you all!

Love,

Austin

Sweetwood and I and the snow. 

 At the top of Zaisan and the view of Ulaanbaatar

From the top of Zaisan.  The language you are hearing is Pakistani.  There was a group of them at the monument.  It was cool to hear them and meet them.