5/29/16 last week in Mongolia – a new stake!

Our blind investigator, Battor is doing much better, he has started to get some help from the Red Cross! They are helping him with Medical stuff and getting him a new ger that we're going to help set up on Tuesday! I started the book of Mormon again and I'm studying Faith and Miracles, It’s been really cool to see how Nephi grows because of his faith between chapters 3 and 16 of first Nephi, while Laman and Lemuel for the most part stay the exact same in the time period. Progression is beautiful, and we do so by living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Faith Repentance Baptism Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. Language is doing well, I realize that I can actually make phone calls and schedule appointments. It’s hard sometimes to talk to people because when they see that my companion is a lot better than me they tend to only talk to him.
Digging Latrines is a great service! We found a less active member and offered to dig one for her, hopefully we can help her and soften her heart to come to church!

English ended last week, and it’s a nice break! We shouldn't have to go back to the city very much these next couple of weeks!

The Nalaikh (Nathak) branch once a part of the Mongolia East district is now a part of the Mongolia East Stake!!!! Mongolia's Second Stake was organized yesterday by Elder Wong (70) and Elder Toronto (Asia Area 70). It is such a blessing to have helped bring another Stake to Mongolia! It will really bless the country and prepare the way for a temple in Mongolia!

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(Editor's note: more Q&A from side emails.)

I thought you said your school only had a few weeks left. What happens afterward? 
What do teachers do during summer breaks? Just back to more missionary work, without having to teach English we have more time to teach lessons.

 More latrines?
 Yes, we actually found a less active and offered to dig her one too this week! Apparently no one likes to do it so if we offer they don't seem to say no! Its actually a childhood dream come true, to just dig a really big hole!

Are you assigned to that school the entire 2 years? 
Generally yes. I say generally because 'they'- the mission office is working on getting us out of teaching children, we'll probably work for the same organization maybe switch to teaching an older class, hopefully! But I should be with the same school/Organization for the whole time.

Ohhh let me tell you... Pizza Hut is in UB the phone number is like 7555 5555 haha, ads have been all over the city. The mission ordered it one day for a zone conference and it was really tasty. It’s pretty expensive otherwise. We don't actually eat out very much but are planning on it next month ‘cause its Elder Sextons last 3 weeks as a missionary so we're going to live. 

Pictures 

Last week’s P-Day Hike (Editor: I actually see hints of green!)

Crazy Gusts of Dirt It was really windy that day

We had a really good meal

We finished digging last week’s Latrine and took some fun pictures

Our laundry thing just spins our clothes in water.

a cool pretty typical fence 

and some random kids I explained a selfie to them

Stake (!) conference

5/22/16 digging latrines and building gers

Missionary work this week has been good. 

The Zone Leaders came out to Nalaikh this week to do splits with Elder Browning and Bird. It was on Saturday and we all had district meeting together and they really helped us out. We came up with a plan to meet with more members and to help out the branch. All of the previous efforts to help strengthen the branch have been in the past and were all top down approaches to get the leadership and whatnot do their callings and it didn't work in the slightest.  Anyway, the ideas proposed and enacted were to work from the bottom up and try to meet with all the members in the branch and serve them. The problem with doing this in the past came from gerchs (witness- we need another adult male with us to visit women) (there are a lot of women members in Mongolia and the men are often working or not around), not having them or always getting burned (not meeting with us or avoiding us or forgetting and leaving sporadically for the countryside), so meeting with members never really worked out. 
The Zone leader suggestion was to work in Nalaikh with greater unity between the four missionaries, If we have nothing to do, do the other elders need a gerch? Also go together to meet with members and we won't have to worry about a gerch and the members can get to know all of the missionaries.

So we tried it yesterday, and it worked incredibly well! We went to three members houses. At the first visit, Elder Sexton really had to go to the bathroom and asked if he could use the noith-bathroom (latrine), they didn't have one, and had been living for some time without one. Instead of sharing a message we got to work digging, we only had half an hour so we didn't get very far, but we'll go back all together on Tuesday to finish the job.
Also we are organizing a talent show among the branch on 6/11. We hope that it will help build greater unity among the members! 

I've been in the country for 2 months last week!

Studies are going really well I will finish my "42 principle notebook" (Preach my gospel has 42 principles outlined to teach to investigators, president Benson wants every missionary to create lesson plans for each principle and put them in a journal to have with you so that we are prepared to teach anything anytime) on June 6th, I finish the Book of Mormon tomorrow, and will then begin a new study on Faith and Miracles for the next 3 months and read the the Book of Mormon again. 
The language is coming, I have a goal to become conversationally fluent at my 5 months in country mark, and I think that I'm going to achieve it! 

(2) How your English class is going?
really good, I am really starting to love the kids we teach, this has made it a lot more meaningful to teach them, without charity we are nothing, and english to children is impossible. Our last day is on 6/1. 

(3) How are things with your companion?
fantastic, I am really enthusiastic about making goals and progressing. Elder Sexton has shown me a lot about those things. Through Goals we can accomplish so much more!

I got to help build a ger for the first time. We were trying to meet with an investigator but they were just about to go and help their neighbor set up their ger so we offered to help!

Service is fantastic!

p.s. your letter came through the pouch mail right after we finished skypeing you on mother’s day. I just forgot to tell you last week.

(editor's note: In mid March I sent 2 identical letters the day before Jonathan left the MTC in Provo: regular mail and "pouch". He did mention a few weeks ago that the USPS letter had arrived...just not the date. He didn't realize I was conducting an experiment.)

5/15/16 Weekly letter

One night we went on a split with Elder Rodriguez and Elder Lamb, and I went with Elder Rodriguez and I realized that I could actually speak to people and connect with them, The gift of Tongues is very real! I had several experiences talking to people on the bus this week and we talked a lot about English and how I'm an English Teacher, 5 people that I talked to wanted to learn English so I referred them all to the Bayanzurkh Classes. The English business cards have been really helpful, something to give to people that definitely are interested.

There was a big English Symposium for English Teachers and administrators in Mongolia. 

Dr. Anderson -BYU-H 

Dr. Paul BYU-I

Dr. Evans BYU - Provo

Sister Gong, wife of Elder Gong-70 She was really amazing, she taught us how to speak some Chinese (I'm of the opinion that Mongolian is a harder language. and that tones aren't that big of a deal (President Benson also says that Mongolian is harder (he having studied both))

It was very interesting there was really cool things learned from these incredible professors.

My English Class is going better I'm trying out some of the techniques that I learned from the English symposium, and they seem to make class more fun. Today I had to break up a fight, between these two big kids I pushed the one into his seat then we dragged them upstairs to see the principal. It was pretty intense but after they were gone, the rest of the class went really well. 

I introduced the four corners activity to my students and they quite liked it and it was really effective. While I believe that the Grapeseed Program isn't for us I think that with proper planning and attitude we can make the best of it! 

I found out that I can do pull-ups. The new Elder's apartment (the best in the mission from what I've seen) has the best pull up bar, solidly bolted into the wall, it is quite nice.

I understand how studying the scriptures is really like putting on the whole armor of God. We study the 42 principles of the gospel as outlined in preach my gospel and we put on the basic armor, Satan can throw rocks and arrows but we keep moving. We need to continue to build our knowledge and as we do so, it’s like soon we're driving a tank and there is nothing that Satan can throw that we can't handle.

(editor's note: an example of being online at the right time to be able to 'chat')

do you have any questions right now?

(Q1) How about...what's the one thing that has surprised you the most about Mongolia, either because it is so different or so "the same"?

(Q2) What interesting foods have you tried? Anything you just couldn't make yourself eat?

(Q3) How's the ward? What are the demographics? What do the members do for a living?

(Q4) What's your average school day like?

(A1) Just how similar it is, and how much people are just the same everywhere.

(A2) horse meat is really tasty. Nothing yet

(A3) the branch is small, not quite sure what they do, the bishop is 28 or 29 - he works at the power plant

(A4) avg school day: we just come in for class and teach. I'm never quite sure which class. It's about 45 minute class periods. We stay in the same room and the kids come to us. We don’t have enough chairs so we steal a bench from the hall. Mondays 4 classes Wednesday 6 Friday 2, split between three of us Elder Lamb Me and Elder Sexton, we are teaching companions

5/9/16 Mother's Day Skype

The whole family: Mongolia, Idaho, New York

5/9/16 'merica and apple pie

Missionary work is going really well. Last week we had another baptism, Our investigator Anujin was supposed to get baptized the week earlier, but she had missed the service by an hour because she'd gone to the city. We almost had a Branch Council meeting but there were other things that had to get done too so it didn't really happen, and I finally met our branch mission leader and he was going to have the Missionary coordination meeting but then he disappeared after church so that fell through as well, but the hope for Sunday meetings was greater than it had been all of last transfer. Studies are going really well, now that we are in our area a lot more, things are doing better. Elder Sexton is helping me learn how to study better, and with how to use a study journal better. I'm going to finish the Book of Mormon this week and then begin another 3 month study through the Book of Mormon.

English classes are going pretty well, I had tried a couple of things with our kids and the grapeseed program, last week I foolishly focused on pushing the material and it was a big problem, I got really frustrated and the kids didn't have a very good time. Today I tried a different approach, which focused on the students, I didn't care if we got through the material, I cared more about them and the behavior of the class. I really worked on learning their names as well and made a seating chart for one class. Needless to say the students liked class a lot more, I was much more successful and everyone had a much more enjoyable time.
It was a really big lesson on teaching people, not lessons.

Really good, since transfers, and Elder Sexton not being a Zone leader we have been much more relaxed with travel, in our area more, and had a lot more fun as we can work even harder and in greater unity! Its really cool to learn from him, he has really great study habits and skills, and I'm really learning obedience, and diligence.

We've been eating really well and exercising well too, and in my first transfer (6 week period) I lost a healthy 10 lbs.

Elder Browning our new District Leader in Nalaikh! 4 Americans in Nalaikh! It is a blast, we have met a couple of times and have ate together and gone on a run for exercise in the morning, to explore the area a bit more. Also we made Pizza Prishkiis on Sunday together which were really delicious and just so much fun.

Making an apple Pie!

Anujin's Baptism

Mashbat and Maria and their family

iluu zorig - Last p-day hike was way cool!

(Editor's note: Jonathan took a full 360 degree photo array. I have stitched the original photos together to create the panoramas - I just couldn't get the "south" to join with the rest. Also, comparing the bends in the river and locations of the few buildings visible to satellite images, I believe this hike was just a couple miles to the north of the town and that the directions on the panoramas are correct.)

270 degrees:  <---W---------N---------E---->

West

North

East

South

5/2/16 Baptism

We had a baptism this week! That was really good! She was really ready for baptism which was really great. After she was baptized she just flew! Partly from being so happy and partly from flying out of the water because it was so cold. Like really really cold! Our other investigator missed her baptism because she went to the city and got back late, she'll be baptized this coming Friday. Work is slowing down a little with the baptism of our investigators, so we are planning to work more with the branch and try to help strengthen them more. About a month ago a random man in Naliakh pulled over and offered us a ride, we were expecting him to be a taxi, but he turned out to be a less active member that recognized us as missionaries! He gave us a ride, his phone number and address. Purevdorj wouldn't answer his phone and we couldn't find his address so we just set him aside for a while. Then Elder Sexton and Elder Hatton managed to find where he lived when they did a split the other day. We stopped by on Sunday and met him, his wife who's not a member and his daughter who is 7. They're a great family!

The garbage trucks here play music just like Ice cream man! 

Transfers are this week and we'll see what kind of craziness will happen.

We bought cheese for the first time last week and that made me super happy last week!

I learned a lot about relationships with other people. While you shouldn't let someone change you to be someone that you are not, its really important to always be changing and improving. If there is a problem, try to become more like Christ, first work to cast the beam out of your own eye before you worry about the mote in your brother's.

Translates to friendship village, the other side says something about naadam the big summer holiday

a brief hour-long split with Elder Heacock

American culture - it's everywhere

It snowed! yeah....

Play time before class

Undarmaa, next to her is Elder Bird, and Timulin

Editor's Note

My apologies for the delay in updating the blog.  Due to the time zone difference between Mongolia and New York (currently 11 hours) I have frequently been up as the week's email comes in.  This can spark a quick Q&A (which is great!) but can make it a little difficult to implement the spontaneous info into the blog posting.  And then, once you fall behind.....