Today’s
email will be from the perspective of my companion, and through his poetic
words...
"1:
Monday night, I (Elder Browning) wake up to use the bathroom and nearly trip
over what in the darkness to my tired eyes looks to be a massive,
shadow-shrouded slug, recently oozed from the toilet to punish my unhappy
night. It turned out to be my companion (Me), who was sleeping on the floor in
front of the bathroom door, hugging a bucket. He shifted to look up at me absently
(rather like a slug), decided that I was not who he was looking for I guess,
and resumed the posture I'd found him in. Anyway, he spent the entire day after
that sick out of his mind. So we stayed home Tuesday. And guess what happened
to me Tuesday night? Same thing. With the exception that I was able to keep
myself in bed and off the floor, thereby maintaining myself as mammal and not
invertebrate. Wednesday the pattern continued predictably. I wasn't moving the
whole day. Symptoms included but were not limited to: aching, coldness,
headache, nausea, wanting to murder my companion for deciding to browse the
phone's annoying ring tone selection in the same room as me, being too tired to
do so, getting back at him by throwing flour on him as he showered, inciting a
nerf gun war with him and the other two elders who decided to crash at our
apartment that night, and almost barfing because of too much activity. Neither
of us felt chipper Thursday, but were both in the prime of health by Friday.
Weird, huh? The doctor's professional diagnosis was that we ate poop-berries.
2:
On Saturday, which originally seemed like it was going to be a great day for
missionary work, we went to church in the morning as we normally do in order to
clean the church. When we got there, all the Nalaikh members had already beaten
us there. At first, we thought hopefully that maybe the entire branch had
collected themselves and we're going to help us clean. Nope! They were going on
a branch activity, and hadn't even told us! They assumed we WERE going,
however, because they immediately set us to work putting all the snacks and
meats and stuff into the tiny microbus into which we were supposed to fit
around 30 people, and then tried to stuff US into it as well. We told them to
hold on for a second, then ran home, changed into our outside clothes, grabbed
the guitar, and jumped in the bus just as it was leaving. That was a tight fit!
The bus in question was only a little bit bigger than a van! We justified going
because the Branch hadn't had an activity in a long time, and we've been
pushing for them to have one. Gotta support the branch! Plus, there was a bunch
of less-actives going, whom we had the opportunity to fellowship (wrestle/eat
meat/play cards with). All in all, it was a really successful activity. We ate
a bunch of Mongolian traditional food, played in the river, I got to play
traditional songs on the guitar while the branch sang along...good stuff! Plus,
when me and my companion went to hike up an adjacent mountain."
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This week I had also felt
rather conflicted. I was thinking about transfers next week and about Nalaikh
and myself, and I thought that I wanted to leave Nalaikh, then I felt
conflicted that it was for all wrong reasons. Then the branch had an activity
this Saturday and all of those fears went away as I got to know the people
better and to work more with them. I really found that my language is good and
that I can talk well with people, that I love them and that I can handle
whatever. I really felt that I have received the Gift of tongues and the Gift
of Charity, in greater abundance this week.
Ахлагч Jonathan
Wilding
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