A weekend trip to Darkhan – a family visit



A tribute to the iron and coal miners near Darkhan



This weekend we went to Darkhan, the second biggest city in Mongolia, population around 80,000. There are two branches in Darkhan and two church buildings. Elder Groberg wrote about his inspiration to bring the gospel to Darkhan in the mid-90s in his book “Anytime, Anywhere”. The church is well established here.

The Fredleys. The Fredleys from Olathe, Kansas and more recently, Herriman, Utah are doing a church leadership and membership support mission. They were familiar with St. Louis and the St. Louis temple so we both had Midwestern church experiences and the temple in common.

They will spend their entire mission in Darkhan. They are walkers and seem to know Darkhan quite well already in their short time here. They hosted us for a salmon dinner on Friday night. We had a great time with them.

The Fredleys have a blog, "Fredleys in Mongolia", where they document their experiences. They went through Naadam in Darkhan. 

The Fredleys attended an opera and talent program to kick off Naadam in Darkhan

They teach English at an orphanage where the “students” develop their talents and tour in Japan once a year. Now they are being invited to tour in Japan twice a year.

Some of  Elder and Sister Fredley's "students" performing

Their story and their accomplishments are inspiring. All 10 of their recent high school graduates won scholarships to the National University of Mongolia.  

They love Family History work and will be good trainers and a resource to the members of the Darkhan District to really move the work forward. They helped line up Saturday’s training with Priesthood leaders, Family History Consultants, a Relief Society hosted lunch, translators, and appointment times with the youth attending from most of the District branches.

Family History meeting. About 75 members were in attendance for our 11:00 am meeting and overview of Family Tree. We trained for an hour and a half, broke for lunch and then registered about 50 members between 1:00 -5:00 pm.

The Family History Consultants were trained by the time the afternoon was over. The members visited with each other once they were signed up for Family Tree.

The youth hung out together and enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect after their Youth Conference bonding experiences.

We couldn’t have been more pleased! The Fredleys were also surprised by the turnout. The youth of the District were following up on their Youth Conference commitment to do Family History work.

The computer savvy Mongolian Elders also were able to help. At one point we had 8 computers in operation registering members in Family Tree.

 

A dinner invitation. Buyandelger and her three daughters had us and the missionaries over for dinner on Thursday night.

Buyandelger's family

They went all out for a lovely meal. Darlene teaches Buyanzaya piano on Saturdays, She is one of Buyandelger’s grandchildren.

Buyanzaya

The Mongolian tradition is to feed the guests first and then eat their dinner once the guests leave. There is a lot a care and tradition in and feeding guests with great hospitality.

The meal was more Chinese than Mongolian. We found out why. Buyandelger’s husband was Chinese and she had learned to cook that way. It was really good and presented in a lovely way.

We looked at Buyandelger’s  photo album and listened to Buyanzaya and Sister Farmer play the piano. Buyandelger also had a beautiful vegetable garden and a remarkable collection of cacti plants.  

More cacti to come

 



Elder Neuberger and companion



Elder Neuberger, a fellow missionary from St. Louis, was able to translate for us. We are assigned to the same branch. He will be finishing his mission in a month. He is a great missionary and has a great sense of humor. He is enjoyable to be around.

The meal starts with harem - a hot milk and salt drink

 

 

A Naadam celebration for missionaries

 





Pres. and Sis. Benson, their four children, and the missionaries from Ulaanbaatar

 



President Benson served in Mongolia from 1996 – 98 while his wife Heidi served from 2000 to – 2001. Our daughter, Tawny, was her trainer for two months when she arrived in Mongolia .
 

After his mission, Pres. Benson lived in Inner Mongolia for a year learning Chinese history, Manderin, and Mongolian script. He was a patent attorney who switched over to real estate law specializing in China and US joint business ventures.

Darlene and I had a fruitful meeting with him upon our return from Murun.  He learned about our activities and we expressed our needs. He has a great love for Family History and will be quite supportive of our work.  

Like all Mission Presidents, he has his unique talents and leadership to provide direction on moving the gospel forward. Even though he is young, he is uniquely suited to serve in Mongolia. We look forward to serving with him.    
 

President and Sister Benson organized a Naadam celebration for all the missionaries in the Ulaanbaatar area.  This is a difficult time for teaching because of the events of Naadam, family get- togethers,  watching wrestling on TV.  Also the Mongolian Elders and Sisters want to celebrate the holiday.

 We enjoyed a special program with a talk about the history of Naadam by Enkhtuvshun ,  the first member of the church in Mongolia and a former University professor.

Pres. Benson spoke and then we played traditional Mongolian games of sheep anklebone and knucklebone shooting.


The Mongolians missionaries knew the rules



The Benson children joined the fun
The Benson children fit right in with the newly adopted grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles and big brothers and sisters.



 



So did Pres. Benson

 

Knucklebone shooting is a skill-based game



Apparently consultation improves performance

We had a wonderful meal provided by the senior sisters: side dishes, catered khoshuur and banana splits.
 

Three of our servers, Sisters Nay, England and Farmer



These banana splits are good!



On Naadam, the Mongolians wear their traditional deels and national costumes.

Many of the Senior couples and young missionaries dressed up for the occasion.

What is this?  Synchronized swimming?

I had a new deel that had been gifted me by our sponsor during the week.  Darlene's top was also a gift from one of our church members.  

Elder Amartuvshin joined us for this picture

A great way to celebrate Naadam

  

Scenes from Naadam



Precision marching by the color guard

Naadam is like our 4th of July and Super Bowl all rolled into a big celebration of Mongolian culture, independence and sports.

Warming up for the big event

Naadam means sporting competition in the three manly sports of wrestling, archery and horse racing. They added a fourth game with a less manly name of knucklebone shooting.

It is still early in the day in the Knucklebone shooting arena

We didn't attend the opening ceremonies this year but we were able to take in the honor guard escorting the nine flags from the Parliament building to the stadium where the ceremony took place.

The nine horsehair flags being brought down the stairs of Parliament

We went to the stadium and took in the atmosphere, a little archery practice and knucklebone shooting contest.

The three men in front are the shooters - check out how small the target is



Judges returning arrows to the archers after a practice round - the red spot in the background is the target

Here is the story of our day at Sukhbaatar Square, Naadam and Sukhbaatar Square again.




View of a warrior ger on Sukhbaatar Square

 

A wagon, a tent and a ger with a repatriated dinosaur, T. Bataar, on display in the background


Tarbosaurus, a close relative of Tyranasaurus Rex, was illegally poached from Mongolia and discovered at a New York auction sale. The Mongolian government successfully sued for its recovery.


The last one discovered on private land was "Sue" discovered in South Dakota and sold at auction in 1997

Hot air balloon next to the Blue Sky skyscraper

Flag bearers



The chief flag rises above the eight flags



They were escorted to the stadium by a mounted guard

by soldiers

and by an officer corps.
 

We walked to the stadium where we ate khoshuur, watched archery and knucklebone shooting, hot air balloons and took a taxi home for a rest before returning to the opera.



Eating Khoshuur

Our sponsor invited us to attend with him and his granddaughter. It was a Mongolian Opera called "Three Heads with a Purpose".

Darlene sported her new tailored jacket to the opera

A church member, Buted, had one of the leading roles.

Buted is to the right of the performer in light blue

We heard there was a laser show in front of parliament so we went out to eat afterward and returned to Sukhbaatar Square.



Another hot air balloon

To get a better view, some of the children mounted an elevated platform

The music was booming, the crowds were huge and we decided to go before the fireworks began.



Everything was beautiful

but we already had a big day



so we turned our backs on Naadam.