Looking Like Siberia...

This week went by super fast, we stayed really busy and had some really cool things happen. It also snowed all yesterday and is now minus 20 outside. After last year the cold isn't really an issue, I feel warm still which is really weird. My companion is dying though, it reminds me a lot of me last year haha. Last p day was one of the best though. A while ago in the summer we went on a hike pretty far to the north of the city and when I was up there I saw a huge field and a single mountain peak that looked cool, but it was about 5 miles away so we didn't go. Last week we decided to check it out, so we left pretty early and made it up there. We bushwacked our way across the frozen willow field and through some trees. We climbed up the mountain and had a super cool view of the whole valley. It was really pretty, and Lutz decided right then to stay until sunset lol. So we hung out for a bit, threw the frisbee around on a plateau by the mountain, and then built the fattest fire to stay warm. When I was looking for some wood for the fire I stumbled on a little metal horse statue that was placed in a crevice of a rock. It was kinda weird because thats what shamans do, so I wasn't tryna get cursed, and behind it was something wrapped up in a religious white clothe. Obviously we wanted to see what it was, so Wadsworth played me in rock paper scissors to decide who has to get cursed when we open this thing. He ended up being the one to open it. It was pretty lame, just a picture of a Buddhist god. He wrapped it back up and put it back. It is a cool part of their religion though to have little things set up in the mountains. That was basically it, got some cool pictures and then came home. It was super relaxing though, just a bunch of really close friends together having some fun. It made me realize even more how much I'm going to miss it here.

A few times this week we went to go knock on some less active people's homes, one day my comp was still teaching English, so I was with another guy. We went way out of the city in his area and tried to find some people, but the address system is non existent out there. We walked around and asked some people for directions, mostly old women walking around in deels. They were all so shocked I spoke Mongolian, and were super helpful. We never did find anyone that day though, the addresses just made so sense. On Sunday we went to go visit a youth in our ward who hasn't been to church in a while. Luckily she was home, and I knew her pretty well from when I served in Sukhbaatar, so she was a bit surprised to see me there. We chatted for a while outside her home and I invited her to church and tried to help her start coming back. I have a lot of hope for her, she's a good girl, just caught in teenage problems. 

This week we had a member take us out to dinner, that was literally the first time my whole mission. It doesn't sound like much, but it was really sweet being able to eat out and get some other types of food. You all probably think it's nothing and weird that I got so excited over it, but it was cool, especially because its never happened before, and I've really never heard of people being taken to get food before by the members. 

I think last week I mentioned we are doing a roller skating night for the youth in our ward. That happened this week and it was a huge success. We invited tons of youth from all over the city to come, but basically only my ward showed up. They came 12 deep to this, and brought some people I've never seen at church, and other non members who might be interested in the church. We had a ton of fun, and luckily because I know the workers there (remember that funny Facebook post about the roller rink photo shoot?) they always let us skate for however long we want even though we only pay for an hour. We were there for a while and had a lot of fun, and got to know all the youth better. On Sunday they all came to church too, even the ones who hadn't been in a long time. 

We met with a new investigator this last week as well. She walked into church last Sunday and seemed very interested, so Friday night we went to her house. We met her family and chatted with them a bit, we brought along Uuree the ward missionary with us. He was awesome and helped teach the lesson really well. It was a really cool meeting, and their family is awesome. They are super humble people and she is very prepared. It's cool to have people just walk into the buildings, I don't know of anywhere else that happens in the world. On the way up to her house, which is pretty deep in a ger district, we were waiting at a bus stop and some kids came up to us and asked if I was Russian. When I spoke to him in Mongolian all his buddies started laughing pretty hard. We talked with them for a while before making it to the house we were going to. I was thinking about this and the lesson on the way home, and I realized how much I really am gonna miss it here. Feeling love for these people and feeling that love being reciprocated is a hard to describe feeling. That's what my favorite part of the mission is though. 

Other than that really not much else happened, piano lessons are still going really well. Someone played the Harry Potter theme yesterday which was a pretty difficult song. There's a lot of progress being made which is cool to see. Love you guys

Austin 

Pictures from our P-day hike

Roller skating party with the youth. 

Just some cool silk fabric I saw.  Thought it was pretty. 

Posters from the political protest the other day.  Things are getting a little crazy over here. 

Family we visited with. 

Some older pictures that I didn't send you.