“T’is the Season to Be Jolly….”

A weird winter. In Mongolia, we’ve experienced winter’s shortest day, Christmas is around the corner, New Year’s celebrations - both lunar and actual - will come with a bang, and soon April will be here, what is wrong with this picture? Not much, except I think winter’s coldest days are also around the corner and the toxic air pollution only goes away briefly in the afternoons.  



Mid-morning view of smoke in the air from our office window

Our good fortune is only tainted by the knowledge that the worst is yet to come. At any rate, our winter is warmed by our special associations with each other and with the Mongolian people and church members who take most everything in stride and with good humor.

The only problem with our small apartment is when we try to heat it, the roof caves in

Ice sculptures have been created – who knew Mongolia would need prefabricated ice? That’s how mild winter has been. Last year we had to wear ice cleats all winter to keep from falling. This winter we’ve hardly seen snow, let alone ice. As soon as we get a relatively smoke-free night, we will take pictures of the ice sculptures lit up.

Party time. Christmas and New Years have their share of parties – Mongolians love to party – so there is a lot to do and good food to eat. Our new diabetic regimen (Darlene is in charge) limits us in a good way from over-indulging.

We are using up all our baking and sweet goods in the cupboard making treats for others – popcorn balls, chocolate chip cookies, jello salads, desserts for potluck parties and treats for missionaries.

I've learned to clean up my own messes on my mission

I’m the assistant chef and have made a few batches of cookies pretty much on my own - once Darlene has located all the ingredients. I am also good at chopping and cutting. There is a little extra shopping involved for those special items we are missing.

This week we celebrated our last day of English

class, birthday parties for Sister England, Elder

Moore, Moogie (one of the translators), a

Christmas party for the Senior couples and the

four translators who help us, and a senior outing

to the Nutcracker Ballet.

Sister England on her birthday visiting with Sister Farmer

 

Elder Moore with Sister and Elder Wood

Sisters Farmer, Gardner, Nay, Stewart, Linford, Wood, and England



Our translators: Urnaa, Ulziika, "Moogie", and Monkhjargal (Angel)

 

Next week there won’t be much of a let up either. I’ll keep my camera handy.

 

Family History. We had some great Family History moments helping train members on how to edit and post their family pictures on Family Tree. Mongolians love Facebook.

Mongolians love their family pictures. Family Tree is a new place to store some of their treasures family memories. This is fun for them and rewarding for us to be involved in this way.

Last day of English. We love our students – we ended up with a small group so we got to know them well. We held our last class with singing Christmas songs, showing pictures of the class in action, tasting banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, and eating popcorn balls – all new to our class members.

Darlene taught them in English the recipes on how to make these treats. The class gave us some gifts.

Our sponsor, Sharavdembrel, by courtesy of TelecoMongolia gave us Mongolian champion hats and belts to go with the deels they gave us last summer. It was sad to have the class come to an end. We will have one more class to go before we go.

The Nutcracker. Several of the senior couples 

were visiting with each other about getting "grief"

from their children about how much culture

we were getting on our missions compared to

whatever else we did for entertainment before.

It's true!

Our nights at the opera, ballet, ice skating shows,

circus performances, and traditional Mongolian

song and dance shows have been a wonderful

bonus to our missions.

It helps to live in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar where there is so much wealth and talent congregated in a sparsely populated but well-educated country.

It is all right here and it is to our advantage to have access to the best that Mongolia has to offer. The love of music and dance is a huge part of the culture here.   

Winter has arrived, English class winds down, Family History news, Family Home Evening

Baby bundled up for winter weather

Winter in Mongolia. This week had a smattering of activities but our first heavy dose of cold weather.  It has consistently been in the -20 degree F range for more than a week.

Accumulated smoke particles in the air purifier filter

Some days have miraculously been smoke free while others are choked full of smoky air and pollution.

Coal is hauled in big chunks in special trucks

No big snowfall or strong winds – just frigid weather and air pollution are the main problems. Not incapacitating weather but more than a nuisance.

Bags of coal ready to be hauled to Ulaanbaatar

Our fall English ends soon. We have fun and enjoy our small class of 5 students. Next week will end this term and we start up again after the first of the year.


Waiting for our students to arrive

We are teaching a segment on food and Christmas music. We brought some American foods for tasting.

It has been a great fall class!

Missionary work and Family History. We are getting more and more missionaries making appointments with us to bring their investigators and members to our office.

Two missionaries with a member

Batbayer, our new member from Baganuur, received the priesthood and was able to baptize his wife into the church. Darlene teaches piano every Friday afternoon so we weren't able to attend.




 
The pictures of Batbayer, his wife, and their farm are courtesy of Dr. Stewart who was able to travel to Baganuur for the special event.


He was the man who researched his family genealogy and had accumulated over 730 family names prior to his discovering and joining the church.  

Here are some pictures of his farm home and animals 7 km outside of Baganuur. He wants us to come and visit him and his family at his farm before we leave the mission.  

Batbayer's kitchen

Heavy winter coat

On Saturday, we held our year end Family History training in Ulaanbaatar.

It ended with Christmas gifts and treats for our 25 Family History Consultants who came.

Presenters Ulziika and Badmaa along with our decorations, treats and gifts

Two of the consultants surprised us with gifts including a Christmas stocking.

Visitors from Hong Kong. Sister Gong, the wife of the Asia Area President came to Mongolia with the Ballantines, Directors of the Kennedy School of International Relations at BYU.

They came to assess our situation in Mongolia on how to better teach English as a second language. They met with all the English teachers (foreign missionaries) during the week and observed their classes.

Sister Gong made several suggestions on how to improve the way English is being taught here. All the Senior couples were invited to share their experiences and also participated in the feedback meeting held toward the end of the week.

John directing the music

Family Home Evening with the Bensons. All the senior couples were invited to the Bensons where we watched different segments of the Christmas devotional.

Pres. Benson with John and Tommy

The Benson children were front and center – doing part of the program and generally entertaining all of us with their antics.

Mary Ann trying her hand at photography

Playing with a Ger nativity set

Isabel solicited an impromptu piano lesson from her teacher

 



On cold winter nights, police keep the traffic flowing from pedestals. Hard duty!



Circus on Ice

The circus came to town - the "Circus on Ice" that is. A performing troupe from Russia with professional and former Olympic ice skaters do amazing and showy circus acts.

They are in Ulaanbaatar for about 8 days with a performance each night and additional matinee performances on the weekends.

The building is a circular auditorium designed for performances like this. It is called "The Circus". The Russians are famous for their circus performances. This love of circus is a cultural legacy from 70 years of Mongolian/Russian relationships. 

A group of us senior couples decided to go together as a Family Home Evening activity. We had great seats on the third row for about $15 each.

Elders Wood and Stewart, Sisters Stewart Wood and Farmer with me on the end. Elder Wood is tall and needed the leg room on the aisle.

A similar show in the US would have been top dollar - we have no idea what that would be because this is the first time we have been to anything like this.


A Mongolian clown warmed up the audience

We try to keep alert for events in Mongolia that are a bit out of the ordinary. We keep looking for a Mongolian wrestling event but the only ones so far we've seen advertised have been on Sunday. Maybe we'll get lucky before our mission is over.

We are going to the Nutcracker ballet on Dec. 21 - a Friday night. We have our own mission Christmas program for missionaries on Christmas Day. The church members have a top quality choir that puts on a Christmas performance for the public every year. They have been in rehearsal for two months already.

There are a lot of special things to see and do on New Year's eve (fireworks) and day to look forward to.  

All of this makes the dreary and cold winter go by quicker. Don't feel sorry for us in Mongolia. Life doesn't stop at all for the Mongolians or for any of us.

Now on with the show!!!

 

Dancing on elevated skates