A semi-routine week

Rug emporium at the Zaak

This week settled into a bit of a routine, if anything in Mongolia is ever routine.

Dressers for the Gers - Felt Mobile Homes

English teaching. We made a major planning effort with our English class to meet the needs of our Customer Care Students. We took our translator to our class and interviewed them about their main dealing and topics with English speaking customers. The class has settled into a group of 14 students with about 13 attending every class. Their main difficulty is in speaking and listening to English. They have pretty fair book knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.

Brass Buddhist items on sale at the Zaak

Our other English class is being consolidated into an earlier class being taught by Elder and Sister Woods. Our students were basically the same students staying on for a second class of English the same evening. We were spending too many evenings out teaching English and this will help us with our schedule.

Post, pans and kitchen goods

Shopping at the Zaak. We went to Zaak to finish buying the lining for my next suit and in the meantime, we picked a lot of other things. Darlene wants to get material for a suit for herself but she wants to pick out a pattern first. We are including more pictures from the Zaak including rugs made in Erdenet. We finished off the day by eating out at a Korean restaurant. Good, but not my favorite.

Colorful buckets, containers and brooms

Family History and Acquisitions.  We will be hosting the Asian Area Family History Advisors on a visit to Mongolia. They are Elder and Sister Thomas and Garnalee Harrington. They are based in Hong Kong. They are coming to Mongolia on Oct. 18 and will be returning to Hong Kong on Oct. 22. We will accompany them to training in Darkhan and Erdenet as well as to a training meeting for all the Family History Consultants in Ulaanbaatar.

Fur coats not on the rack

We learned much to our satisfaction that a budget for a records acquisition project in Mongolia is looking good. No negotiations have taken place yet but we think there are positive feelings on both sides.  We can’t believe how all of this is working out. We stuck our nose in this project and everything is falling into place. We’ll keep you posted on all the developments as they occur.

 The Jaredites leaving Babel 
Albin Veselka - 1979

General Conference. I was able to see one session of Conference (midnight to 2:00 am) streamed live on my computer. The way the church does this here in Asia is they have an Asian Area Conference one week after General Conference. 

All the talks are translated into Mongolian and broadcast one week later to all the members here. There are English sessions for all the Ex-patriots living in Mongolia, the Senior couples and others who want to watch Conference in English. We have a potluck meal in between sessions.

The Senior couples have a once a month Family Home Evening on the first Sunday of the month. Next month, we host the meeting. We enjoy this spiritual get together with our fellow missionaries here in Ulaanbaatar.

Program for Married Members. I was asked by President Clark to submit ideas on a monthly fireside program on helping Mongolia members with their marriages. 

Possible joint presenters at church firesides on how to have strong marriages

I submitted my ideas (12 topics patterned after the Know Your Religion series) and got positive feedback from several people. There will be a planning committee formed in a similar way to the Young Single Adult Conference.

The National University of Mongolia

Alima has asked me to teach her class on Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Mongolia on Oct. 17. She will provide translators for me. She will be in Korea for a week. I will have to work hard and reengage my brain on all my therapy ideas and techniques. 

Sister Farmer with Harolthsuren and her husband

We ended the week with a visit to Harolthsuren and her husband. They hosted us and the Sister Missionaries for dinner. Our daughter Tawny helped bring her into the church on her mission 12 years ago. We now want to help her husband that that step. 

Two generations of missionaries are working on this family. He is Chinese and we felt he needs to hear the Gospel taught in his own language. The Sisters will bring a Chinese speaker to their next few visits.

Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon
Yu Wen Chich - 1976