Recovery – slow but sure.

Lots of beauty to be discovered in Mongolia

I’m better – mostly. This week involved a couple of trips to the hospital where I saw the Dr. that was treating me. On Thursday she gave me a clean bill of health, told me to continue my medications for 5 more days and no more return visits. Yeah! 

I don’t feel like I have all my energy back and not all my appetite. People are complimenting me on my weight loss and how I look - one small benefit from a miserable three weeks. 

Darlene was released from the hospital on Monday and has been basically housebound since then. She started a new medication on Tuesday and her health is improving rapidly. She is weak and doesn’t have all her strength back, not her appetite as well. I’m afraid she will have another week at least of recovery before she resumes some of her duties.  

We’ve had some caring gestures of concern and support from members and fellow senior couples. We are getting by OK but our Mongolian and a few other projects have slipped off the front burner.

It’s been a slow week but things started picking up for me about mid-week and now I am up to my eyeballs in responsibilities – plus taking care of Darlene – shopping, cleaning, cooking. 

English again. We cancelled our second week of English classes this week. This week I will teach solo beginning on Tuesday. Darlene and I will confer on lesson plans for the three days of classes this week.

Camel riding last summer

Senior trip. Each year the senior couples have one sight-seeing venture to bond with each other and to see some of the historical, cultural sights of Mongolia. I worked with last year’s tour guide, Jangar, to put together a proposal for this year’s trip. He will projects costs of the tour for each couple and we will submit the proposal to President Clark for his approval. 

Chinggis Khan statue - visited during last year's trip

President Clark ends his mission at the end of June and a new mission president will take over. His first responsibility will be to get to know the missionaries and a ton of other responsibilities. He won’t have time to concern himself with a senior trip and will want the senior couples around to familiarize himself with their duties also. 

Our proposal is for a senior trip in June. That way President Clark can choose to participate if he wants to.  More on this later. 

Marriage seminars. Because of deadlines and the return of my energy and focus, I was able to put together a prospective 10 class series on Marriage Enrichment workshops for members in UB. 

After 46 years - on the poster

We developed posters for each chapel and bulletin board patterned after the “Know Your Religion” series. 

In the beginning - on the publicity poster

I had the help of translators and a talented member who designed the posters. All ten sessions were outlined with their topics and dates. There is a lot of enthusiasm for this project as most the church education programs center around Young Singles and Institute classes.

Our co-presenter - Alimaa

Our first workshop is Feb. 2 and the second is on Feb. 23. The rest are spaced out to run through May up to June 1^st. None are scheduled during the 20^th Anniversary and reunion week scheduled in April. We will repeat the program this fall with live broadcasts to all chapels in Mongolia. 

Family History work. This coming Sunday will be an all Mongolia fast for Family History work in Mongolia.  We will have a fireside that evening on Family History work that will be broadcast country-wide. The Family History leadership in UB have pulled through and organized the fireside without our help – because of our health problems. They did a terrific job of putting together a great program.

The members are being asked to gather family history information during Tsagaan Car – the National Holiday that begins with the lunar new year. Everyone in the country gets three days off work and one day to rest up afterward in order to make visits to their families, starting with the oldest ones first. 

Tsagaan Car. Mongolians honor age and their parents and grandparents and this is their most important holiday of the year. They start cleaning their houses and making food preparations weeks in advance. Hopefully Darlene and myself will experience a few of these visits ourselves. There are a lot of rituals connected with these visits. That will be for another blog.

Missionary work is impossible during these three days. The missionaries are invited to visit members' homes also. The main days for visiting homes center around the second weekend in February this year. President Clark has scheduled a missionary talent show during one of these days to help the missionaries take their minds off their own families. 

Archery competition

Mongolian missionaries can call home twice a year, just like our American Missionaries do at Christmas and Mother’s Day. The days they call are during Tsagaan Car and Nadaam – the summer holidays that feature Mongolian sports and ceremony – wrestling, archery, and horseracing. These are the days they are most homesick for their families. 

Mongolian wrestling during Nadaam

Three daughters are visiting Mongolia in April! I am joining the 20th year anniversary planning committee tomorrow and will learn a lot more details of all the excitement and special events that are being planned. We are delighted and excited as can be. 

During deel parade during Nadaam