Another day of "school". The picture is outside our "school" building. Note the name (we have a grandson named Matthew Cowley)! We finished 'Preach My Gospel' training, and now we are headed into Welfare training. Monday we will travel to Salt Lake again to go through Welfare Square and meet with more important people. I can't even begin to tell you how senior missionaries are loved and appreciated!

   We were suppose to have P-day today, but they called us to a welfare meeting all morning. But what a meeting! Brother Beecher (our leader) asked if anyone had experienced a miracle in their lives because of their mission call. WOW! One of the senior elders shared the neatest experience. He is around 60 years old and never learned to read! About a year ago he was camping alone. He decided to pray to ask what the Lord wanted him to do with his life. He heard as clearly as an actual voice, "Learn to read!" Remember he is around 60 years old. He felt so good about getting that answer, he decided to go and pray again to see if there was more. He told us the Lord didn't actually say this, but it felt like He was saying, "You idiot, I already told you--learn to read!" When he returned he went to the library to get help. The librarian gave him some suggestions, which he tried. Two days later an 88 year old retired Colonel called him. They started working together and, in about six months he could read! For the first time in his life he can study the scriptures. He was so humble. He was crying, we were crying. Brother Beecher just hugged him as he sobbed in his arms.

   Another Elder had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was told they would make him as comfortable as they could 'til the end. He said, "No, I have a call to serve a mission!" He is here and in quite good health. One sister's health had become so bad after receiving their call that she was certain she would not be able to finish a mission. They came anyway and now she can climb stairs, attend classes, walk wherever she needs to and is doing fine. These stories are common here.

There was such a strong spirit in that meeting!
   The need for Welfare missionaries is tremendous. You would be amazed to sit in these classes and hear and see what the rest of the world is struggling with and how desperately they need to be taught the prinicples of the gospel. President Hinckley had so much vision and understanding. He is constantly being quoted here.
   We are still struggling with the Mongolian language. They keep double scheduling us. Next week, we have computer classes at the same time as our language classes. We have homework from 3 different classes every night! Murmur, Murmur, Murmur! We found out today that we are suppose to be in English as an International Language classes (which are required to get into the country) until 5:00 Tuesday night and fly out at 8:00 that same night. Not goin' a happen! It is the weekend, so we will have to wait until Monday to get this fixed--we hope.
   It is good to hear from everyone and see you on our blog and some of you on the web cam. They talked about web cams in our class today. They are 100% for it. They know that is how they get grandparents away from their grandchildren. They left us with a quote and we'll leave it with you: "We are entrusting our children and grandchildren to a higher level of parenthood!"

We love you all,
Elder and Sister Caldwell