Saihan Shineleerei!

Saihan Shineleerei everyone! Happy tsagaan sar! Starting tomorrow is the Mongolian holiday tsagaan sar. It will last 3-4 days. We will wear traditional Mongolian clothes, visit only those who have invited us, eat their buuz, and enjoy the holiday. We will not be able to teach any lessons, but when we visit people we will attempt to share a thought or talk about family history. 

This week, I sat in on my very first MLC (missionary leadership counsel). We planned the zone training which will be this week. Both city zones will be together, so I will teach a part of the training in Mongolian to approximately 45 missionaries... no biggie... wish me luck!

We have been trying very hard to find new people with little success... I talk to all taxi drivers but they are always a different branch so I have to give them to other missionaries. We have gotten referrals from members and missionaries, most of which were not interested, called everyone in our phone-nothing, went looking for old investigators- all gone, but God did bless our efforts with 2 new investigators who are awesome! One is a teenage boy and one is a single young mother who speaks great English- that's pretty nice :) They both want to become members fast and they love everything we teach, so great!!! We are still praying that the work will continue to move forward here too! Also we will begin teaching a couple deaf investigators in Mongolian sign language soon! Time to use what I've learned.

Our apartment is freezing cold, and very ghetto, but on the bright side, we have gained 3 pets!!!

Outside our apt are 3 dogs who we love dearly. We named one of them yawandaa (it means eventually in Mongolian), one baatar (warrior or hero), and one saihan gar (punk). We give them the bones from our meat, and they walk us all the way to the bus stop from our house... pretty far. So yah, missionaries can't have pets in apts, but what did it ever say about outside dogs? haha

I taught kindergarten!!! It's so great!! We eat breakfast with the kids, sing songs with them (including the national anthem... they are so cute!), then do exercise time with them (like zumba), then we begin teaching. We teach 5 year olds first, then 4 yr olds, then 3 yr olds.... they are all adorable and speak English pretty well. We teach from a series of YouTube videos.. basically songs, as well as flashcards. It is definitely way more high energy, but I'm loving it! They are the cutest and so fun! Then we also eat lunch with them,... so great!

Yesterday, I think my comp and I did something no Mongolian missionaries have ever done before... because of the holiday we couldn't find a witness for a lesson, so we taught our new member OUTSIDE!!! What?! Yes, we taught a lesson outside in the freezing Mongolian winter cold, haha. Our new member thought we were crazy, but he loved it!!! He made us take pictures to commemorate it.

Not much else has happened, love you all! Praying for you! Keep me updated please!

The market where we buy our meat.

My new comp