Opposition in all things

Banner showing Chinggis Khan family tree for our cancelled cemetery records preservation project.

The banner has a quote from Chinggis Khan,
"Parents, don't forget to teach your children about their roots." 

Family Home Evening. Last Sunday we hosted a Family Home Evening for senior couples and Pres. and Sister Clark in our apartment. The subject was on our missionary calls, the impact of technology on missionary work, overcoming opposition and seeing the hand of the Lord in bringing forth His kingdom on earth.

Each couple related how they felt how their call was inspired and how that related to some of their experiences since coming on their missions. We marveled at the unique talents and gifts each couple brought and how they applied them during their missions. 

Pres. and Sister Clark told about the opposition they faced in the work in Mongolia and how the Lord has blessed their efforts. It is a great testimony about how the Lord watches over His church and is in the details of our lives.

Our living room before company arrives

Our English class is going well but attendance is falling off some as winter has set in. The students our really learning and enjoying the class.

Senior couples Family Home Evening in Ulaanbaatar - Pres. & Sis. Clark on the left

Chingeltei Cemetery Project. On Wednesday morning we went with the Richardsons to the Chingeltei cemetery to practice photography on the tombstones. We anticipated how the project could be of great benefit to gaining a secondary source of records for Family History work. It would also be a very meaningful service project for the members in UB. Everything came to a crashing halt about 4:15 pm in the afternoon just 15 minutes before our weekly staff meeting. 

Elder Neuberger and companion along with Sister missionaries

Adiyabold (1st Counselor in the Stake Presidency) told us our project was cancelled. The reason was that someone (I think it might have been him) did some serious investigating into the politics of the development project that was encroaching on cemetery ground.

Prior to this, Nasanbold had secured oral permission from the association in charge of the cemetery. Soyolmaa had checked into it and felt satisfied we were OK with the project despite not having written permission from the governmental authorities.

Adiyabold told us that there were two groups – a pro-development group and an anti-development group that are contesting about whether the cemetery ground should be used for new development. He and others (presumably President Odgerel) felt the church could be viewed and misconstrued as taking sides in the conflict by doing the records preservation project. The anti-development group in particular would be likely to start a rumor that the Japanese (the developers) and the Mormons were conspiring to desecrate Buddhist graves, disrespect Mongolian nationality and unleash evil forces by disturbing the dead.

Rather than the Church being put in an awkward position of being perceived as supporting one side or the other, the project was postponed until further notice. It is better to be safe than sorry so this may be the blessing in disguise.

Some good things have come from our endeavor. One is that the Harringtons saw the value in having a digitizing of records from cemeteries in Asia. The Harringtons are starting a project of gathering records from a run down cemetery near a race track in Hong Kong and are spreading the idea to other countries in Asia.

Danny Chin feels the Church hasn’t funded a cemetery acquisition project in 15 years but believes Mongolia would be the perfect place to have a trial project. He will be submitting a proposal to the Church Family History Department about the value of gathering data from cemeteries, especially from a country like Mongolia where written records are spotty due to political destruction of records and elimination of patronymic surnames by the Russians.



Shoe inserts and stockings for sale

 On Friday, we had a meeting with the Mongolian Funeral Association to learn how cemetery records are kept in Mongolia, how thorough the records are and the process of accessing these records. This meeting was fortuitious. It turned out the Mongolian Funeral Association is in charge of clearing the cemetery at Chingeltei.

They are building a Memory Park in one section of Chingeltei. The memory park will be surrounded a wall consisting of 108 Stupas that will house the cremated remains of the bodies they will exhume. The walls of the Stupa will have the names and dates of birth and death from the graves they will clear. There are over 200,000 graves in the 7 Hills cemetery. 

Outside of the Memory Park land, the rest of the

land will revert back to the government who is

involved in developing the 7 Hills area.

Primary children practicing inviting a friend to church
 

The Mongolian Funeral Association was

interested in knowing about us and meeting us.

They aren't planning on any action (clearing of 

graves) this winter. They will have a data 

preservation project in the areas they plan to clear 

in the spring. They will be participating in 

educating the public on the new Memory Park

and how the graves of the deceased will be

handled. The Government also plans a good effort 

to dispel rumors that are swirling around.

They are interested in our offer to volunteer to 

help them. They also have a budget for recording

the data from the tombstones. They indicated that

all photography should be done by Mongolians. 

The Buddhists would be alarmed if foreigners 

were involved onsite.They suggested that any 

foreigners assist by providing food or other

services offsite. 


Our going ahead with the project as we planned it

would have had several foreigners onsite and

would have greatly upset the Buddhist

community. Also when we volunteer in the

spring, we will be in coordination with their 

system of recording data from the tombstones.

Returned missionary Tugsbaatar holding up my doodle from the Mission conference

They seemed especially interested in our ability to

help them index the data from the tombstones and

have it recorded online. I am sure the church will

be able to secure a copy on all indexed

tombstones.

There are 6 other cemeteries in Ulaanbaatar, some

of which will have the same renovation project as

the 7 Hills cemetery. They will need our help in

the future as future projects unfold. Our project

was a good one but, in the long run, we put our

project and ideas on a much more solid footing by

meeting with people we did.  

Returned missionary Bayarjargal posing for me

"There must needs be an opposition is all things." Danny Chin arrived from Hong Kong just in time for our Wednesday staff meeting. He is in charge of records acquisition for the Asia area. The next day, Danny Chin, our translator Batsengel and ourselves meet with Ulziibaatar, the Director of the National Archives, Erdenbat, the Director of the Civil Archives and Buyan, the leading genealogist who compiled the Chinggis Khan family tree.  

Buyan represents a private, not-or-profit organization that has started a digitizing project with the National Archives. The goal of the meeting was to see if the three organizations would work together in a mutually beneficial way to achieve common objectives.

They stated their goals of having records available so that all Mongolians can trace their lineage through five generations. Accessing data in the National Archives is the main way Mongolian citizens have for tracing their family history. We stated our long term goals of long term records preservation for the world’s genealogical records in the temperature controlled vaults in Salt Lake City. 

A second goal would to be prepare Mongolian names in digitized form to be available online on the Internet so that Mongolians everywhere could trace their personal family history. They will also be responding on a point-by-point basis to a letter of inquiry that we gave to them in September.

The meeting had a promising beginning. We learned that there was a major census in 1918 and a series of four more census data collections during the 1920s and early 1930s. After that the census records were collected every 10 years. 

Mongolian privacy laws extend back to 1932 so that data from the 1932 census and prior census records are in the public domain. Birth, marriage and death records, and military records are available in the National Archives up until 1957. After that year, the civil records are housed in the Central Archives – a separate archival unit that functions under the direction of the National Archives.

Ulziibaatar explained that there has been an upsurge in Mongolians wanting to know their family lineage during the past five years. The National Archives haven’t been able to respond to that need. They are in the process of getting a new building in 2014 where they can consolidate their services and records from 3 buildings into one building. They haven’t been research oriented and deferred that expertise to Buyan and his efforts to compile the Chinggis Khan genealogy.

He stated that Buyan and his organization have started a digitizing project and are awaiting new equipment that will come with the new building that will push the work forward.

We explained all the ways the Church could be helpful in furthering our mutual goals – talking about the equipment, manpower and expertise we could provide in accelerating the digitizing process.

Shopping at the Sunday store

We communicated our respect for the work they are doing and our willingness to fit in to whatever role they wanted us to play. Our only requirement was that the Church receive a copy of the final product. It seemed like an offer they wouldn’t refuse.

I won't go into the details on a public document, but we received an unexpected setback in that they weren't ready to ask our our help or involvement. 

We are making this a matter of prayer and being patient. They need to contemplate what they are turning down. Maybe the discussion will cause some reflection on how mutual cooperation might work out to their benefit.

Danny Chin believes that much was accomplished by this meeting. We could see the dynamics of the people involved and got the real issues on the table. Negotiations like these sometimes take years. This meeting cut through a lot of preliminaries to get to the heart of the issue and also had all the significant players at the table.


Baby boots for winter

Danny Chin has a professional relationship with Ulziibaatar that is strong and will improve with time. He emerged from the meeting more hopeful than any of us because of his experience in long term negotiations.  



Finding a birthday present

Shopping. After such a week, we tried to distract ourselves from our setback by shopping for a sweater for layering up for me and a birthday present, a stone necklace, for Darlene. We include of pictures of our shopping trip and also the Primary and church members from the Sukhbaatar Branch.

BBQ on a cold winter day




Election week is O’bummer but other than that...

View of the National Parliament Building after a first snowfall from our classroom window

Chingeltei Cemetery comes alive. The highlight of the week was how quickly the photography project at the Chingeltei Cemetery took on a life on its own. The planning committee was exceptional in their thoughtfulness and thoroughness. 

The beginning

Next

We visited with Soyolmaa, the Service Center Manager, about our amazement about how such a large project could take shape on short notice.

More

She said that Mongolians are great procrastinators. Most anything they plan, they accomplish at the last moment. So whether or not there is a large or a small time window to do things, it all works out about the same. 

And more

She also said that most everything works out well. We agree completely. We’ve seen some really first class events since coming here 4 months ago.

Our project stops where the top wall ends

Our Chingeltei project will involve from 200 to 360 adult members, depending on how many show up. The graveyard itself is immense. We are only doing a fraction of the actual area that is scheduled for destruction.

Add a little flour and the inscriptions become visible

There will be training on digital cameras photography, grave preparation, and downloading on to laptops for later uploading on to the Billion Graves website. We have two buses rented and food catered to the church afterward for everyone that participates.

Some are easy to read

We will organize the members into 6 teams that are responsible for a certain area of the cemetery. Each team will have mini-teams of 3 or 4 members that will consist of groups of a photographer and the others will prepare the tombstones for maximum visibility using flour to bring out the inscriptions.

Mongolians have a fear of graveyards because of Buddhist traditions of evil spirits. I researched Buddhist death and burial rituals and feel I understand somewhat why this is a challenging activity for the members. The planning committee made the decision not to involve youth under 18 in this project because of potential vulnerability to superstitions and fears. Sometime I will share more about what I learned but there is so much more to share about this past week.  

Welcome home

Missionary transfer meeting. A number of Mongolian missionaries completed their missions including 3 that returned to Mongolia after serving in the United States. They all bore their testimonies and sang a hymn together. The meeting was broadcast throughout Mongolia. One senior couple, the Shropes, will be leaving us in a month.

Choir rehearsal prior to Missionary Transfer meeting.

A group of 26 members have been at the Hong Kong Temple this week. The Richardsons were able to accompany this group. 

The Richardsons

These temple trips are marvelous experience. The members go for their own endowments and then spend a week in the temple doing work for their own family names. They are assisted by the temple patron fund.

There are several goals the members have to accomplish to go on this trip besides having current temple recommends. One thing they have to do is save their own money and contribute a portion toward the cost of the trip.  

O’Bummer, er, I mean Obama. Sister Farmer and I were in mourning about the election results. We both wore black the next couple of days after the election.  Romney came so close and we actually believed (hoped) he would win. What a disappointment! 

All the senior couples from the United States were down in the dumps. The Lord’s plan and church will continue to grow and flourish despite the travails we think our country will experience. Our children in the United States were similarly affected and we spent some good Skype time commiserating with each other.  

A Family History Center for Choibalsan. We Skyped with the Branch President from Choibalsan and gave him four final tasks to do before the Family History Center in Choibalsan will be formally approved. We will be going there with President and Sister Clark on the first weekend of January to do some training with the Priesthood leaders and the new Family History Center Director.

Now this is the Mongolia we imagined - our apartment is on the left.

Snowstorm and weather. It’s cold and it feels like winter. We had our first snowfall where snow stayed on the ground. I wear a hat or cap and scarf every time I go out – let’s say most of the time. Darlene lost her voice and I had to teach English while she sat and watched. 

The Mongolians think the expression “lost your voice” is hilarious and offer to go help look for it. They say something like “your voice is gone or not here” which actually makes more sense.

Beginning keyboard students - group lesson

Keyboard in our office - nice view of UB - Hong Kong Temple - Peruvian Book of Mormons.

Saturday piano lessons and Sunday Primary music. Darlene teaches piano on Saturday morning. She gives 20 minute individual lessons to the more advanced students. We have a keyboard in our office. Oyun, our daughter Tawny’s first missionary companion in Mongolia, is taking lessons.

Primary music practice

We have a big week ahead of us. 1. We host the senior couple fireside on Sunday evening. 2. Ulziibaater, the Director of the National Archives, is going to meet with us on Thursday to discuss a records preservation project for Mongolia. 3. Danny Chin, the Asia Area Acquisition specialist, is coming to Mongolia to be a part of the meeting with Ulziibaatar. He also wants to see the Chingeltei Cemetery while he is here. 4. On Saturday, the Cemetery Project will take place from late morning through the afternoon. Throw in our usual English classes and music lessons and it will be a memorable week.

Big Mission - Big Goals

Marriage seminars. Alimaa and I continue to plan marriage seminars that will take place at the church for the next year and a half while Sister Farmer and I are in Mongolia. It will be a series of 10 Saturday evening firesides on different marriage and communication topics. The classes are scheduled to begin in January and will be repeated again in April, September and January of 2014. Beginning in April, these classes will be broadcast to all church buildings in Mongolia.

The work with helping Mongolian members with their marriages is like a mission within our Family History/English Teaching mission. Alimaa has a television crew that will do live filming and prepare visual graphics to augment the presentations. I will be helping her with the PhD research on defining distinctive Mongolian mental health issues.

We are marveling at all the things that are happening for us since we arrived. The Lord truly had a mission waiting for us to perform here in Mongolia.

A Day in the Life of Mongolia

A relaxing week - except for US politics

Are we ready for winter? - We think so.

When the Harringtons were visiting us from Hong Kong, we could hardly catch our breath so this week was a welcome “Rest and Recuperation” week. Notice I didn’t say “Recreation” – we crammed all that in the week before after our whirlwind trips to Darkhan and Erdenet.

Feeding the pigeons brings good fortune - and the pigeons are all for it.

The bride is looking for good fortune too.

This week had a few notable happenings. We have an appointment scheduled with Ulziibaatar, the Director of the National Archives for the week after next. We are anxious to see what progress we can make on records acquisition for the Church in Mongolia. 

We had a productive meeting with President Clark about all the Family History projects we have going in Mongolia. We are planning on a new FH Center in Choibalsan, a cemetery photography and cleanup project in Ulaanbaatar, and a focus on motivating members in UB to submit names for temple work.

Chinese tombstone

We are also in the planning stages of presenting 10 workshops for married members in UB beginning in January. This will probably necessitate our being released from our Branch callings. The mission wants to capitalize on my professional background in communication and relationships in addition to the Family History work we are doing.

Teaching about marital therapy at the University of Mongolia

New office. We moved into our new office on the same floor as the Mission office, the medical office and the English office. We will have a lot more privacy to concentrate and do our work. We’ve been getting our computers and printers to work properly as well as decorating to the extent we can. 

Elder Neuberger holding an Aymara Book of Mormon and standing in front of a copious supply which ended up in Mongolia.

Our office also stores mission pamphlets and Mongolian Book of Mormons (awkward phraseology) and 19 cases of Aymara Book of Mormons sent by mistake to Mongolia - they belong in the Andean mountains of Peru and Bolivia. (We are being patient until the church decides what they want to do with them).

English class. We taught our English class about Halloween and showed pictures of our grandchildren in costume. Next Tuesday we are going to talk about the American elections and government. We are able to have some pretty good discussions in English about topics (family relationships, their jobs) we bring up.

I approve this message

The tension mounts. We have been paying too much attention to the campaign for the presidency and will be anxious to hear the results and move on. We read political analysis on the Internet and some of it is unsettling. This election is a big deal and it is captivating but also tension producing. We will get election results beginning about 8:00 on Wednesday morning.We voted by absentee ballot about 5 weeks ago.

Last mission transfer meeting broadcast to all chapels in Mongolia

Mission transfer meeting. Tomorrow night is a mission transfer meeting and the missionaries completing their missions will be bearing their testimonies. This is will be the second transfer meeting we will see. We were amazed at the first one. There will be 6 sisters and one new elder departing for the Phillipines’ MTC on November 22. They train for three weeks and then they come back to serve in the Mongolia UB Mission.

Elder Neuberger says goodbye to companion Osorjamaa

Winter has arrived. The weather has turned crisp and cold. Nothing drastic yet. There was a storm predicted for this weekend but all that happened was a drop in temperatures. There is a smell of wood fires and smoke in the mornings but the air pollution that is to come isn’t here yet. 

Winter is yet to come - photograph by Gordon Wiltsie

We’ve mailed some letters and sent Flat Stanley back to Arkansas accompanied by souvenirs and a few photos to prove he was here. We shopped for a few more winter clothes – scarves and hats besides Darlene’s high fur-lined boots. 

Buddha at Gandan Monastery