Naadam!

This week was pretty awesome! The missionaries here (my companionship & the other sisters) conduct/teach the young single adult FHE (family home evening) and mutual (youth night) for the teens. This week we did both – it was super fun and the people are great, but I’v e realized one of the hardest things to do in Mongolian is play games. Ugh … it’s a real struggle, mostly because I don’t know the random vocabulary for games. Everyone was so nice to try to explain them in broken English haha … that’s a game in and of itself. It was funny to see that they actually play a lot of the same games as youth in America. Once I knew the gist of what was happening I could figure out what game it was.

We had a church service project this week. We all piled into a meeker – a large van (I stopped counting once we had 25 in it but people kept coming), and drove out to this beautiful green field. We were given bags, gloves and masks and we went to work picking up trash. It’s so incredibly sad to see such a beautiful place like Mongolia covered in trash (it really is everywhere). The activity was a success.

We are teaching some of the most amazing people right now! A young man showed up for church last week, stayed all three hours, then asked us to teach him a lesson after church … then he came to YSA FHE and we taught him a lesson after … then he came to mutual … then we taught him on a different day … then he came to the service project! He is awesome! He is smart too – he’s 17 and graduated from high school, studying at the Mongolian university. He knows old Mongolian, taught himself English from songs & tv shows, and more! We are also teaching the sweetest couple. They are faithful and read & pray every day. We have finished their lessons but they are having trouble getting a copy of their marriage certificate so we are waiting for that before they can be baptized. In the mean time we read the Book of Mormon with them.

Okay … NAADAM!!!!!! Naadam is a Mongolian holiday with horse racing, wrestling and archery. Everyone wears traditional Mongolian clothes. It last 4-5 days and families get together and eat lots of food … it’s just awesome! We went to the opening ceremonies and I got to shoot arrows (the guys were way impressed with my skills), held an eagle, took pics with horses & camels, and ate Khuushuur (meat pastry). It’s pretty cool. :)

I love Mongolia and am having so many amazing experiences here. My testimony grows every day and I know this is where I need to be. I love the people so much! I know that God loves and knows us perfectly and he truly wants to help us. If we sincerely pray to God, I know He will answer us through the Holy Ghost.

I had this traditional vest made for Naadam.

Enjoying the meat pastries with the other sisters.

Some of the military parade.

A member's brother.

The people here are wonderful!

All us sisters with the senior missionary couple.