Zone Conference - New convert and Family History

 

Elder Naef and companion introducing Batbayar to Family History

 

This will be a brief account of our activities prior to our leaving for Khovd on Friday, Oct. 27.

Zone Conference. We had a Zone Conference this week with President Benson. Besides the spiritual messages and training, there were special segments on teaching English, budgeting, and demonstration of helpful exercises with a pizza lunch in the middle of the day.  

One of twelve exercise stations with two minutes at each station

John Benson on top of his perch - Isabel joins the missionaries 

Part of our group

Pizza was a hit

 

Elder Standley in foreground - Elder Odd (white shirt is visiting with Elder Gardner

Family History Highlight. A new member, Batbayer, joined the church in Bogonuur. He is a herdsman and raises his animals about 7 km. outside of town.

Elder Naef invited him to church on a chance encounter and he came. During a Sunday School class on Family History, he heard about tracing his family genealogy and its purpose in the plan of salvation.

His face lit up and he had an animated conversation with Elder Naef and members in the class. Batbayar had collected over 750 family names and he was connecting with a larger purpose for his endeavor. 

Batbayar brought his books and photographs with him

Following his lead, his large family of 8 adult children are expressing interest in the church including one son in China.

Batbayar's immediate family is on the right

One of the first things he did as a new member was to make an appointment with us to begin entering his data on Family Tree. He is looking forward to going to the temple in a year.

He will get the priesthood soon and will be baptizing his wife and other family members as soon as they are ready. We are getting a detailed history of his conversion.

Meeting Batbayar

 

Our first real day of winter, Darkhan again, and loving English.

Elders Bayarjargal, Standley, Odd, Chingajav and Jangar, our guide

An outing on a really cold day. We have been enjoying a brisk, cool fall with bright sunshine. Today was different. The wind blew hard and we layered up with clothes to cushion us against the weather. We didn’t bring out our heavy winter coats. Maybe we should have.

Our visit to Dambadarjaal Monastery

We planned a District P-Day outing to a monastery in the northern suburbs of Ulaanbaatar. The monastery was founded in the 17^th century by Tibetan monks.

The "eyes" show the Tibetan influence on this stupa - a burial tomb and alternate worship site

The buildings are over 300 years old.  It was the center of what was to be Ulaanbaatar at the time. The Gandan Monastery toward the center of modern day Ulaanbaatar later supplanted this monastery and took with it the Buddhist University, leaving a mostly a shell of a facility.


Elders Standley and Odd - the large white building is an abandoned Buddhist university

Jangar came along as a tour guide.  

Jangar explaining Buddhism to Mormon Elders

Darlene chose to stay home to protect her health. Smart woman! We survived our manly adventure and we are no worse for wear. I think tourist opportunities are limited from now until spring. We climbed to a hill overlooking the monastery and the ger district looking toward the city.

Elder Odd in front of a typical Ger District -  the Chingeltei mountains are in the background

Special broadcast. On Sunday, we enjoyed an Asia Area broadcast to all the meetinghouses in 14 countries. The broadcast was translated into all the local languages ahead of time and took the place of the three hour block schedule.

Elder Holland from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has been assigned the Asia Area and was one of the featured speakers. We senior couples listened to an English version. The broadcast featured talks on member missionary work.

Those who arrive early get individualized instruction

English class. We are in a groove and have polished our teaching methods and lesson plans. We have six months or less to go on our mission so all our teaching skill we will take with us.

Going over the clues used in the treasure hunt

These classes are delightful despite being a lot of work. We love our students. There will be so much we will miss about Mongolia when we leave. We planned a treasure hunt this week which our students enjoyed thoroughly.

Part of our training in Darkhan

Quick trip to Darkhan. On Saturday, we hired Zorgeo, our taxi driver from this spring, to take us up to Darkhan and bring us back the same day. This saved on hotel expenses.

Elder Fredley is in the center and Sister Fredley is on the right, - Zorgeo, to my right, joined us for lunch

The Fredleys, who live in Darkhan, helped with the arrangements and the food and were wonderful hosts.

PuuJee on the left with our new consultant in Darkhan

We traveled with PuuJee, our friend and new country adviser for Family History in Mongolia. We wanted to train her on this trip and introduce her to the Family History Director in Darkhan.

Orunchimeg, the FH Director in Darkhan

I had a counseling assignment and took along our own translator from UB in preserve the confidentiality of local members in Darkhan.

The weather cooperated and our trip went without incident. It will probably be our last trip of the fall and winter as road conditions will make travel more hazardous.

I should have said “next to last” as this weekend we will go to Khovd for Family History training. This trip was rescheduled from earlier this month when we missed our flight.

Landscape near Khovd

This will be our one and only trip to western Mongolia during our mission. We are looking forward to it and we hope the weather cooperates.

Our health. Last winter we both ended up with double pneumonia. This winter we are being a lot more careful and won’t push ourselves so hard. The smoke and pollution in the air makes us vulnerable to respitory type infections.

We aren’t looking forward to the siege of cold weather that will be our new life for the next four months.  I will have a couple of writing projects to keep me busy but indoors. We have special masks to wear that filters out the pollutants.



Monastery grounds - the red building is the summer temple and the circular light orange Ger temple on the right is the winter temple.

 

Asia Area General Conference, Swan Lake, Khazak hospitality

Our group on the steps of the Opera House

General Conference. Twice a year, when General Conference is broadcast from Salt Lake City, it takes a week to have the materials translated and dubbed into Mongolian (and the other languages in the 14 countries within the Asia Area). Our General Conference is the following week. This consists of 10 hours of music and talks spread over five sessions.

Standing for a hymn

The selected members of General Authorities and Auxiliary leaders of the church individually prepare talks on different matters of importance concerning the church. The Conference is broadcast to every church building in Mongolia. 

For those of us who understand English, we can hear the talks live on the Internet but at awkward hours of midnight to 2:00 am, 4:00 – 6:00 am and from 8:00 - 10:00 am.  We can also watch on demand once the conference session is over and the talks (English version) have been uploaded.

Most of us senior couples are able to take in most of conference before the Asia Area General Conference weekend begins. We have the additional opportunity to hear the conference sessions a second time at hours that approximate the times in Salt Lake City. We especially listen for topics that meaningful to our lives personally and  try to implement them in our lives.

Watching conference together

The foreign English speaking missionaries all watch the English sessions while the Mongolian missionaries watch the proceedings along with the Mongolian members in their native language. Conference is available over the Internet at LDS.org in over 190 languages.  Those of you who are new to the church and want to see what this is all about can glimpse our leaders and hear their chosen messages.  

Swan Lake. Living in the capital city gives us an opportunity to take in some cultural events from time to time.  After the Saturday afternoon conference session, most of the senior couples chose to go to the ballet Swan Lake. It was an exquisite performance. The company was Russian trained which meant it was the top quality.

We took a whole row and then some

Darlene realized what she saw at the Bolshoi in St. Petersburg was something like “Scenes from Swan Lake” instead of “Swan Lake”. Though it was difficult to follow the plot completely, we enjoyed this night of highbrow entertainment.

The Parliament building was all lit up as we exited the theater

A special dinner. After the performance ended at 7:30 pm, Darlene and I were invited to Alima’s home for dinner where we would be able to meet her parents and also her maternal grandparents who were visiting from Khazakstan.

 

Ourselves, Bayar and Alima

They were visiting Mongolia to celebrate her and Bayer’s recent wedding. 

Bayer is investigating the church and will likely become a member. Their wedding reception has been delayed because of a 49 day Mongolian grieving period following a death of an uncle. When it is rescheduled, we are invited to attend.

Grandparents in front - Bayar and Alima flanking her parents and Alima's two younger sisters

Alima’s father is a judge in Mongolia and presided over the corruption trial of Mongolia’s last president (communist party) who left office under a cloud of illegalities in 2012.

The Democracy party won an important election in 2012 and from our perspective is a good thing. He trained at BYU law school in 2010 and recognized my brother’s picture as a member of the law school faculty.

Alima’s grandparents and parents all spoke Russian so Darlene was in her element. We had a lot of fun and this was a delightful way of meeting her family and her Khazak grandparents.

With our Khazak gifts and Alima's grandparents

They gave us some gifts – a Khazak robe/coat and a scarf. What a nice memory!

The Benson's with 3 of their four children - Elder and Sister England

Potluck dinner. On Sunday after conference, we had a potluck for all the senior couples in UB and President and Sister Benson and their children. The food was fantastic! Darlene prepared a beef curry dish.

Elder England and Mary Ann

Sister England and Isabel

The Benson children are irresistible for all us grandchildren-deprived seniors serving in Mongolia.

Elder Stewart trusted his camera to John

The Golden Eagle Festival - Bayan Olgii, Mongolia 2013

I am glad Dr. Stewart, Sister Stewart and Ulziika made it to the Eagle Festival at Olgii. Dr. Stewart takes a lot of pictures - great pictures! His pictures are the next best thing to being there.



The town of Olgii 

He shared his top 300 with me. I winnowed them down to over 50 to tell the story of the Eagle Festival and save the rest for those non-descript winter weeks when photographic opportunities are sparse in Mongolia.



The landscape is almost desert but with a lot of rocky terrain and barren mountains. 



This is Khazak country and the dominant language is Khazak and not Mongolian. The Golden Eagle Festival is held once a year in the fall.

Photographers and tourists were there from around the world (the reason why we couldn't get rebooked on a flight), almost outnumbering the Khazak Eagle hunters and their birds.

Eagle hunters have competitions for best outfit,

a timed event where eagle are released from a cliff and land on their owner's arm and he races to a finish line, and a timed event where an eagle lands on an animal skin (simulating an attack). A grand parade kicked off the event. There are food vendors and Khazak handicrafts for sale.


There were other events held the next day but the Stewarts and Ulziika needed to be in church in Khovd the next day.













The Grand Parade:












Two riders on a camel

The Stars of the show:

A hooded eagle - the hood is taken off before the bird is released to hunt or to fly it it's owner.



The competition

Eagles were released from a cliff and would land on their owner's arm.

 



Some eagles weren't perfect

 

The judges

Informal Scenes from the Golden Eagle Festival

Feeding his bird

 

Three old-timers celebrating their common heritage

Portraits of eagle hunters

 

The oldest participant - 80 years old

 

 

 

 

The gathering of the Khazak eagle hunters was a cultural and visual feast.