Be Strong Part 2

When the day of the youth conference arrived (Thursday, June 17th -- see previous post), we went over to the Church early, to help provide breakfast and a sack lunch for the some of the kids (the ones who had needed to travel in from the countryside) before they left. We arrived at a little past six o'clock. Thought we might find things still a bit quiet, there.

Wrong!


The kids who had traveled in from the countryside, had stayed overnight in the mission offices, sleeping anywhere they could find a piece of floor big enough to through out a blanket or two.

As you can see from the pictures, when we arrived that morning, the kids where already up and were cleaning the church building!! We were astonished! They really did a job on that place, too! They had a fireside at the building a bit later,

cleaned everything up, and packed there belongings before leaving. You can see them all in their youth conference T-Shirts waiting for the fireside to start.

This is the scripture upon which the conference was based. "Be strong and of a good courage" (Joshua 1:9)

Finally, we sent them off to camp. It was about an hour to an hour and a half ride on buses to get them there. Half of the drive was getting through to the other side of the city. Then they hit the bad dirt 'roads'. And that's after the three day ride some of them had just getting to the city! But we never heard a complaint.

We were unable to go with them that first day, being obligated to teach English. But we did go up for the day on Friday. When we reached the camp (and part of the drive was on some of the worst 'roads' we have seen here), we found a very unexpected surprise. It was in the middle of some heavily tree'd forest! We had no idea there was that kind of forest anywhere near Ulaanbaatar.

This last picture shows the camp where they stayed. It was really a pretty nice place. Similar to Mill Hollow (a public school system in the Salt Lake City area), but actually nicer in some ways. Not perfect, but it more than did the job for us.


We share more of the actual conference in the next post.

Be Strong!!

This is going to take a couple of different posts, but we have a lot to share.

This last week, Elder and Sister Cook visited with us here in the Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar mission. Elder Cook was the first mission president here, beginning in 1994. At first, he wasn't the mission president because there was no mission, yet. But that quickly changed and the Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar mission was born.

His wife, Sister Cook, is the 1st Counselor in the General Young Womens' Presidency. The two of them brought a lot of wonderful instruction with them, which they provided while they renewed long time friendships and visited with many members here whom they have come to love over the years.

Elder Cook was the one who found and brought several key people into the mission and whom are very much still an important part of the mission today. One of those is Batbold (pictured). Elder Cook needed someone who knew the area (they certainly didn't at first!), had a car and could drive them around town.

So, he went out on the street and watched cars as they drove by, hoping to flag someone down who looked like the right one for the job. You need to understand that this is how you get around here. You just hold your hand out, indicating that you need a taxi. Usually, an actual taxi of some sort stops. But often, just somebody passing by who could use a couple of bucks, stops and temporarily becomes a taxi.

As he watched, he saw a van driving by and thought, 'That's just the kind of vehicle we need!', and he held out his had. The man stopped and off they went, looking around the city.

The gentleman's name was Batbold. They managed to communicate enough that Elder Cook let him know he needed him again the next day. And the next day. And the next day after that! But finally Batbold said, 'I can't drive for you anymore.' Elder Cook asked,'Why not?', to which Batbold answered, 'This isn't my car!'

Elder Cook felt that Batbold was needed by the Lord here and told him that it was ok, they needed him to do other things for them. Batbold has been working for the Church every since. He is the 2nd Counselor in the Mission Presidency and handles all of the physical needs for us missionaries. Such things as making sure we all have apartments to live in and that everything is kept working as it should in those apartments.

Batbold is a wonderful man, well loved and respected by everyone in the mission. In fact, the mission would likely about fall apart with out him. He travels throughout all of Mongolia, taking care of problems and making certain everything is in good order.

While Elder and Sister Cook were here, we had Youth Conference. It was three days long, running Thursday thru Saturday, June 17, 18 and 19. And what a youth conference it was!!

This was a nation wide youth conference and the youth were brought in from all over Mongolia. That in and of itself was a monumental task. If you have been following this blog or are familiar with Mongolia, you will know that roads here are not exactly what we are used to in the States. We've included a couple of reminders of what most roads are like here.

One of the branches sent 41 youth across these roads, on a bus! Yup! A big old bus like the Greyhounds we find in the states. It is absolutely amazing where they take those buses!

And understand that this wasn't just a couple of hours of riding for those 41 youth. It took them three days none stop (night and day) to get here. Then, they spent three days camping at youth conference, climbed right back on those buses the afternoon that the conference ended, and headed back to Khovd, where their homes are! Hundreds of kilometers (oh, we mean miles) each way!

We don't ever want to hear American youth complain about some silly little 8 hour drive on freeways to get to a youth camp, again. It will fall on deaf ears!

These kids are unbelieveable. We were able to spend part of the conference with them and to help out a bit. It was a remarkable experience. We'll tell you more about it in the next post.

Childrens Center Service

We recently had the opportunity to volunteer at a children's center which is trying to reopen. This is something like a daycare in the States, except that some children will live here much of the year. And the children will range in age from quite young, to 11 or 12 years old, or perhaps even older.

This center is located in the middle of a large ger district (i.e. a residential area composed of gers and shanty's which are typical here).

We help one of the members here get the job as manager of this childrens center (Naraa) and she invited us to come and help get the flower beds ready and seeds planted. Naraa recently graduated from college here in what we would referr to as one of the Social Sciences. The lady who owns the center walked into our office one day and told us she was looking for a manager for a children's center. We immediately thought of Naraa.

And we had no sooner mentioned her name than she also came walking into our office! The lady hired Naraa on the spot!

When Naraa asked us if we could help, she didn't exactly have to twist any arms! Sister Caldwell, of course, was ecstatic that she could dig in the dirt again and plant some flowers! It's been a while since we have worked a flower bed!

Two senior couples along with one set of young missionaries went to help out.

We had a good time and accomplished a lot, despite an obnoxious wind blowing part of the time.

We especially liked all of the fun paintings on the walls in the compound!

Had to throw in this last picture. This is a section of wall along the back of the complound. It is fairly typical here to see a wide mix of fence types. Sometimes they just use whatever they have to get the job done!

Our Trip North Continued

During our out of town trip (see previous post), we saw some interesting things and visited some interesting places.

We were amazed to see miles and miles (oh, excuse me, kilometers and kilometers) of wheat fields, like the one pictured here. Mongolia does produce most of its' own flour needs, now, and is pushing to bring that to 100%.

Then we came across a herd of camels. As you will probably notice, they are rapidly loosing their winter coats, trading them in for summer attire. This big old guy seemed to be the 'King' of the group.

And finally, we drove the extra 15 or 20 kilometers from our northern most stop (Sukhbaarar City), to the Russian border. This is the guard station through which we had to pass, after already having obtained needed permits at a border patrol office in Sukhbaatar City. The road was gated at this point and the guard had to review our papers before he would let us through.

We were told that we were standing in Russia as we took this group picture. Elder and Sister Powell (a couple we have become quite close friends with and who traveled from Ulaanbaatar with us on this trip) are standing on our left (your right) and Elder and Sister Anderson (the senior couple assigned to Sukhbaatar City) are on our right (your left). That is more of Russia in the background.

On the map, you can see the red circle noting the area where we were (click on the picture to get a larger view). The river in the background of our group picture, is the Selenge River, which empties into Baikal Lake in Russia.

So now Sister Caldwell and I have been in Mongolia, Hong Kong China, Korea and Russia. Who'd a thunk!!
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Wet Paint!!

We just recently learned that the sign in this first picture, means 'Wet Paint'. We do learn a little bit of Mongolian when the occasion demands it. Why do you care, you ask?  Read on.

We have been out of town for a few days and, in fact, still are at this posting, traveling with Elder and Sister Powell. We are traveling to three separate cities in the northern part of Mongolia, doing some training, testing and instructing. Things have gone pretty well and we have accomplished much. With the exception of one 'little' glitch, that is.

As we visited one of those three towns (Erdenet), we 'divided and conquered' for a bit. Sister Caldwell and I got things going at the Church building while the Powells checked on English instruction and sponsors. However, when they returned, Elder Powell said something like, "Boy, I wish I understood Mongolian!", turned his back side to us and lifted his coat. What we saw, you can also plainly see in picture number two!! He had sat down right in front of the sign, having no clue what it said! Someone did came along and rattled off a bunch of Mongolian to him, to which he pleasantly responded, 'Hi, how are ya'!"

A bit later, we had a couple of minutes of extra time and returned to 'the scene of the crime.' We found many people (all of whom could very readily read that sign) sitting on those same benches. We managed to talk Elder Powell (he was very hesitant at first) into lifting his coat so that they could see what the dumb Americans had done! We thought they might get a good laugh at our expense. Well, ok. At Elder Powells expense, at least.

But their reaction was a bit unexpected. When they saw Elder Powells trousers, they immediately looked very shocked, quickly jumped up off the bench and began checking their own clothing! They were certain they had 'sat in it' themselves!

Surprised, we hurriedly made some hopefully appropriate apologies and explanations (which none of them, of course, likely understood anyway) and quickly walked away. Once out of sight, we couldn't stop laughing!!

That was just one experience from this trip which turned out pretty good! We'll share more of our little excursion in the next few posts. Like maybe our visit to Russia.

In fact, we have much to share and are a bit behind. We'll try to catch up this week, if we can.
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Teaching English

As a result of the changes made in application of immigration laws (see prior posts), we will only be able to teach English for the organization which sponsors us. Our sponsor is now the Changiss Khan Hotel, just down from the Church office building and across the street from our apartment complex. A convenient location, indeed!

Unfortunately, we are no longer able to teach at the two places at which we have been teaching since we arrived over a year and a half ago – the National Archives and the Sukhbaatar Court Judges. We had enjoyed teaching there and will miss the friendships we had formed with many of those students.

We will spend about the same amount of hours at our new assignment with less travel time (that was sometimes a significant problem at the old locations – too many traffic snarls here) but more in class time. And there will be a lot more students. We taught only 12 or so students total at the old locations. We had 55 at our first class at the hotel.

But there are some nice perks at the hotel, too. The Operations Director and the Registration Director are both Returned Missionaries and the General Manager is an American (Sam Sallam) we have come to know through other dealings with him. He also is familiar with the Church and has a son who used to be an active member.

Between the three of them, they have insisted that we eat dinner there after class every day. That’s four days a week! And this is an upbeat, very nice establishment! At least one of the nicest in town, if not the nicest.

Thought you might like to see where we ate our first meal there. The sacrifices we have to make! This was actually a lunch after we held our first, level testing class. From now on, it looks like we will be eating dinner.

We’ll see if we will be able to stick with it every time we teach. But it will be nice, at least once in a while!! We’ll let you know how it goes, from time to time.

While we were there, they brought in a group of children from a nearby orphanage and feed them lunch in another part of the hotel. You’ve got to understand that these little Mongolian kids are just wonderful! Much cuter than the American kids (with the exception of our grandchildren, of course!).

They were sure excited!