Week 11 - Today is not that day! (but two days from now)

We had a p-day on Saturday but now we're back on our regular Tuesday P-Day schedule for the last week. We leave for Mongolia in 2 days!!!!!!!!! I've been packing and doing laundry, not much to say about that. We have class tomorrow, and even on Thursday morning though we leave in the afternoon! 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true. The Book of Mormon is a true book. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God's Church on the Earth today. 

I love you all!

Ахлагч Jonathan Wilding

P.S. I've got a lot of pictures this week though, saying goodbye to all of the Thai Missionaries and others in our Zone. 

Week 10 Pictures

Week 10 - Last week from the MTC!

Сайн байна уу?

This week was really great! We got to go to the BYU English Language Center for observations upon observations, upon more observations, and some teaching! Haha, it was actually really cool, we got to practice teaching to teach 3 different groups of English students, the first two times was a practice for the third where we were recorded and evaluated! We taught individually but with our companions (we each taught a different part of the lesson) to The very beginning English students. It gave me a really great appreciation for my own Mongolian teachers as well as really helped me to connect to non-native English speakers. English is a really hard language!

I met Four Mongolian students at the ELC and I actually could understand a lot more than nothing haha so that went well! I love the Mongolian People. I found out that I will be teaching at Ikh Zasag Secondary School! (Great Government school) all the responses have been very underwhelming... but I am excited!

We had our infield orientation yesterday and we were prepared to dive straight into the work in our field's. It was fun we learned a lot about opening our mouths and going to talk to everyone that we meet. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the path to true happiness in this life, if you are happy now, you can receive even more joy, if you have problems, turn to Christ and he can take them. When you can't bear your burdens trials any longer look to God. There is a life after death. Families can be together forever. God wants us to live with him and become like him. This is True.

 

This time next week I will be in Mongolia!

With Love, and Excitement!! 

Ахлагч Jonathan Wilding

Also I forgot to mention that my Companion, Elder Christensen Left to Thailand this week so I have been missing my good friend. It has been some fun and trying and growing weeks.

Week 9 pictures

Week 9 - Nothing Really - Just TRAVEL PLANS!

So the English training is going really well! I actually really like learning all of these principles. Yesterday I learned about their ROPPPES model of lesson planning. Review, Overview, Present, Practice, Perform, Evaluate, Summarize. 

Anyway its very interesting and I'm learning a lot! Next Week we go to the BYU ELC to have some practical training 8 am to 3 pm Mondaythrough Thursday!

The only big thing that happened this week was getting flight Plans! 

We leave Thursday the 17th and will be traveling for a beautiful 34 hours! A wonderful 19 hrs of flight time and a marvelous 8 hr layover in the Seoul Korea! 

The doctrine of proximity - President Packer

In order to receive revelation, we need to be on the way to do it. Revelation comes from Action! 

One of life's greatest temptations is to sit and do nothing.

I love you all!

Ахлагч Jonathan Wilding

Flight Plans

34 hours from the time we leave the MTC till we arrive in Ulaanbaatar!

About 19 hours in the air.

10 hrs of layovers

Week 8 Pictures

Week 8 - Sister Tuesday

The English training has been going very well. I'm the slowest at our two week, online course, but I find  the material really fascinating and helpful in understanding Mongolian as well as just really good teaching and learning methods and suggestions. Oh well, I will finish it on time. Its helped my learning Mongolian too! A vocab memorization suggestion was to making picture flashcards with the foreign word on one side and a descriptive picture on the back. This really is helpful, because in order to draw a picture of something like Service you have to really think about the concept of the word, then your mind associates the Foreign word with the concept rather than just the Native word. 

I think that this works better than Mongolian to English flashcards, because instead of Mongolian word -> English word -> Concept, it cuts out the English part, also I'm really proud of my stick figure drawings :) 
On Sunday on our way back from walking to the temple Elder Garcia said that he thought he saw a Sister Tuesday behind us. We slowed up our pace and sure enough on this sister's name-tag was Sister Myagmar or Мягмар which is the Mongolian name for Tuesday and so I turned to her and said "Sister Myagmar?" She looked up like anyone does when they hear their name, then I said "Like Tuesday" and her face lit up as she recognized that I knew what Tuesday was in Mongolian and then looked at my tag and recognized her native language! Anyway, She is going to the Temple Square mission, and it was the most exciting thing to be able to use what I know and to see that I actually do understand quite a bit (relatively). It really made her day too to get to speak her language and think about home.

On Sunday I played the cello for sacrament meeting, Consider the lilies of the field, and was accompanied by Sister Hansen. It was really fun to play again. I realized that I haven't actually performed a solo for a group ever, so I actually got really nervous. But it ended up being really good and I had a fun time sharing my talent. I also realized that I have been playing the cello for just about 10 years. Thanks for getting me lessons and having me keep playing, it really is a blessing in my life.

Ахлагч Jonathan Wilding

 Alma 42:4 "And thus we see, that there was a time granted unto man to repent, yea, a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God." This life is a time to change ourselves and become like God by following His Son Jesus Christ. We can change because of the atonement of Jesus Christ and be forgiven of past mistakes or misdeeds, sins and shortcomings. Through the atonement of Christ we can be strengthened through our trials and hardships. He knows all of our pains and all of our sorrows, and if we give them to Him, He will take them. Repent and Turn to God and you can receive the peace that comes from forgiveness.