The Time is at hand

After a two week delay, Mongolia will finally organize its first stake this weekend. In anticipation of that event, we thought we might share a little of the history of the Church here in Mongolia. This is a mini version, but we hope it will be of interest to you. Some of the details are taken from a book titled, "Mongolia, The Circle In The Clouds".

In 1991, Monte J. Brough arranged for volunteers from the Church to come to Mongolia in response to requests from the Mongolian government for humanitarian assistance. The Russians, after years of providing for every need, had just abandoned Mongolia and turned the country back to the its people. Elder Brough's agreements included providing the requested service and also that the volunteers would, in their free time, teach the doctrines of the Church to Mongolians who requested or desired to hear it. The Humanitarian service first requested was and still is the teaching of English. It was necessary if Mongolia was to participate in a world economy.

In September 1992, the first senior missionary couple arrived in Mongolia. They had no apartment waiting for them as did we and no one to "show them the ropes" here in Ulaanbaatar. And they were soon followed by five other senior couples. Apartments were located as they settled in for their first winter. It was cold and food was scarce. Sosor, an early local convert, cleaned their apartments and stood in lines to buy a head of cabbage, some potatoes, a loaf of bread and a few eggs for the couples. Some nights these first senior missionaries went to bed without having been fully satisfied by their evening's meal.

By August 1993, there were eight Mongolian members of the Church. And during that year, the first six single elders arrived. By May of 1994 there were 80 members of the Church. We now have close to 9000 members of the Church and nearly 200 missionaries serving in Mongolia, and the vast majority of the missionaries are now native Mongolians.

As we serve side by side with these incredible young people and as we invite them into our home where they teach their investigators and testify of the Gospel, it is so plain to see why Helaman called his young warriors his sons, "for they are worthy to be called sons." And we would add as Helaman did, "Never have I seen so great courage, nay, not amongst all the [mormons]." We have become very attached to some of these young warriors and now some of them are finishing their missions. It is difficult for us to see them leave.

Since that small beginning in 1991, many senior missionaries have come and gone. They have left their mark upon the people they have served and Mongolia has left its mark upon them. The membership has continued to grow from those early days. This weekend will mark the creation of the first stake here in Mongolia. There will now
be one stake, two districts and about 20 branches in 11 Church buiildings, all from those humble beginnings just a few years ago.

Often it is challenging to know what or how to teach these good people. The majority of them do not know who Jesus Christ is. They have no concept of heaven or a Heavenly Father. They do not understand that they are of the House of Israel. But they listen and accept anyway.

As they receive the blessing of a stake, they will also be privileged to have a patriarch. To this point, only missionaries serving in foreign countries and a few other members have been blessed to have a patriarchal blessing. But you might be interested to know that among these choice people, their lineage has been declared as belonging to every one of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Ether 13:11 "...and they are they who were scattered and gathered in from the four quarters of the earth, and from the north countries, and are partakers of the fulfilling of the covenant which God made with their father, Abraham"). We sometimes feel that we are "living the scriptures", seeing prophecy come to pass.

When Elder Nelson was here in February, one of the missionaries asked how they should teach about God. He told them to start with what they already knew, as Ammon did with King Lamoni. That pattern is a good one. And in keeping with his pattern, the most important vision to maintain while serving in Mongolia is that of service. We are very literally following the "Ammon" model for building the Church in Mongolia. "We have come to live and serve for a time...."

May we continue to be as successful as he was.
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Darkhan-Erdenet Conclusion

Finally getting around to finishing the report of our trip north. We've gotten rather busy with some new and significant projects we have taken on. We'll tell you more of those later.

Amy asked about the length of our trip and where the towns we visited were located. Thought those were good questions and decided to include this little map so you could get an idea of where we were.

From Ulaanbaatar to Darkhan is about 223 k almost straight north - about 150 miles for you non-metric speakers. Then, from Darkhan to Sukhbaatar is about another 98 k (65 miles). Refer to the previous entries for a schedule of when we traveled to which city. In case your wondering, yes, we were only a couple of miles south of the Russian border at this point. And even if we would have had time to go see it (which we didn't), we would have likely had second thoughts about it. The last senior couple to go visit the Russian border (about a year ago) made the mistake of taking a picture and were arrested and thrown in jail!

You may also notice on the map that they have not included the silent 'k' in the spelling of those towns.

Once we returned to Darkhan, it was then 180 k (120 miles) west to Erdenet.

The challenges of driving 'out in the countryside' were . . . interesting. Often and sometimes unexpectedly we would come around a corner or over a hill to find livestock alongside or on the road.

Sometimes, the road just sort of disappeared. It wasn't too bad when you could see far enough ahead to see there was a problem or when one of these cute little signs seemed to warn you of impending doom (These gave us a real chuckle! But it took us a while to connect the sign to the idea of 'missing road ahead'). But other times we had no warning of any kind and it was 'hang on to your hat' and grit your teeth! On several occasions, the road turned into a cavernous hole big enough to swallow a small car.

This picture shows several sections of missing road in the distance. They are worse than they look in the picture (trust me!), but are still some of the 'milder' missing sections we came across. We were glad we were in an SUV!

Have we mentioned that we now consider it a privilege to pay high gasoline taxes in the states?!

Other sections of road gave us a headache as we sort of 'vibrated' our way across them, particularly an old 15 kilometer section of Russian concrete which looked like it hadn't seen any maintenance or repair since it was created some 40 years ago! But despite this rather gloomy portrayal we have provided, most of the road as actually fairly good and we always seemed to arrive safely and on time.

Along the way we would come across a variety of religious shrines and markers. Unfortunately, we didn't really have time to stop and take a closer look. It was drive here and teach there as fast as we could make it happen.

Next time we will plan a bit differently and make it a somewhat more leisurely trip.

Opps! Last part of our Hong Kong Trip

I just realized that we did not quite finish our report of our trip to Hong Kong. Too much going on here to remember all of it!

During our little excursion to the south end of Hong Kong Island , we also visited a place called Aberdeen(see map posted April 24th) . Aberdeen is a sea port and was fascinating! We marveled at the conglomeration of ships in that little harbor (the larger ships were further out). If you look closely, you will probably figure out that people not only work on those boats, but many live on them, as well!



The various Sampans were the most fascinating -- including the one we were riding on! That's Elder and Sister Gibbons (our area supervisors who serve in Hong Kong) with us on the front our our little Sampan.

We often think of the blessings we receive through our service here. Being able to see parts of the world we had only seen in movies is just the icing on the cake.

After our little excursion around the bay, we just had to have a sea food dinner! One always is taking something of a risk eating out at a place that we are not familiar with. But we did pretty good. Dinner wasn't bad at all, though it didn't measure up to Johnny's On the Dock, Fisherman's Wharf or anything else in the US!

The large 'shrimp' we like to eat in the states we know is not really shrimp at all, but prawns. But I bet you've never seen one served this way! Hmmmmm good! Just makes your mouth water, doesn't it?! Want some Amy?!

Good to hear from you Rod. It's fun to see comments from folks we've temporarily left behind. It doesn't even matter what you say; it's our way of feeling connected. Kind of like our version of 'letters from home'! Thanks, all for not forgetting about us!
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Darkhan-Erdenet Continued

We saw many new things as we journeyed from one city to the next. Our first target as we continued north from the interesting rest stop before described (see post dated May 16th) was a city called Darkhan. This gentleman seemed to be guarding the way to the city.

It's likely difficult for you to get a perspective of size but he is probably about three stories tall and seemed to be made of materials which might be commonly used in construction.

After staying the first night in the Kiwi Hotel (let's just say it was not the best place we have seen even though the food at the restaurant was, in fact, quite good, despite taking them over an hour to get it to us), we switched to this room at the Comfort Hotel. Quite nice, as you can see. We got a really good deal on this particular room because it was about the last one they had left. [We probably shouldn't have shown you this. Now you won't feel sorry for us!)


Once settled in our room, we went to eat at their restaurant. This room is where they seated us! There was an in the wall TV and a nice big window overlooking the area. We ate at that nice little table . . . and it didn't take them an hour to bring us a really nice dinner!

We ended up taking three helpers with us. Sitting next to Sister Caldwell is Zola who just wanted to come along and help our translator with the work to be done. Next is Miigaa, our translator, who did most of the teaching. Next to her is Tsolmon who lives in Erdenet and wanted to visit his family. He was very helpful in carrying baggage and directing us to the church buildings and other areas unfamiliar to the rest of us.

The two girls stayed in a room which we provided and Tsolmon stayed with friends in the area.

By the way, no matter where you stay in Mongolia (our missionary apartments included!), the beds are pretty much rock hard. No box spring and mattress sets here! Just what looks like a slightly padded box springs. Ouch! This was the only one we had seen which at least included a one inch foam pad on the bed. We stuffed a couple of spare fluffy comforters (which are kept in the room), under the bottom sheet and it really wasn't to bad! [Now do you feel sorry for us again?!]

As we continued even further north at the appointed time, we saw a temporary change in scenery. Trees! Not very many, mind you, but trees,none-the-less. It was really nice and a bit refreshing even if it didn't last very long.

Unfortunately, the landscape returned to the rather bleak and dry rolling hills we have seen so much of in Mongolia before we reached Erdenet, our next destination. But we understand that further west it becomes very picturesque for miles on end. If we are fortunate, we may be called on t0 provide some instruction in those areas, as well.

The horse drawn cart shown below is becoming a frequent sight as we travel from place to place, now that warmer weather has arrived. Sometimes the carts are loaded with a variety of goods. Other times there is what looks to be an entire family bunched on that rather small but serviceable conveyance. We assume that this is the only form of transportation some of them have.


We'll conclude our trip next time.

It's Spring Time

Before we share more of our trip to the north, we just had to show you a little bit of spring as we have here in Ulaanbaatar. You'll have to pardon us, though. After the winter we just had, we can get pretty excited about seeing 'green stuff' around! And it doesn't take much!

The first picture is the side of our Church building. One of the few landscaped buildings in the whole city. The lack of water and not having much history in landscaping things, make this something of a rarity here.

And we were really excited to see these flowering bushes looking so nice in the middle of the city.

They are making some really significant attempts to beautify this year. The main road through the city (Peace Avenue) is being heavily planted with trees. All of the trees visible in this picture, are new. Once they decided to plant, they apparently didn't want to wait for 20 years to have them grow to decent size. So they planted them half grown!

Also thought you might like to see the only 'river' running through the city. The main river runs just outside the city but this little flow runs close to our apartment and is actually enjoyable. It is, apparently, unusual for it to be flowing at all this time of year. The wet season doesn't start for another month or so.

I know none of this compares to what you are all seeing now, but I told you, it doesn't take much to get us excited!

Darkhan-Erdenet

We've spent most of this week traveling to northern Mongolia and conducting training
and testing in three cities -- Darkhan, Erdenet and Sukhbaatar. Thought we'd just do a quick blog to let you know we are back -- very tired but back -- and share a couple of quick pictures.

Among the many new things we saw, was our first camels. These are young camels and haven't developed their humps, yet -- Mongolian camels have two. You might notice that they are still shedding their heavy winter wool and look a bit scraggly. But it was fun to see them and they seemed nearly as curious about us as we were about them.

Then we were surprised, in all honesty, to find cultivated fields that would rival the big farms of the Midwest in the United States. We saw mile after mile of fields similar to those pictured here. We also saw a variety of equipment used to cultivate those fields, from very large old Russian tractors, to old caterpillar type machines, to very new looking, eight wheel, enclosed cab John Deere tractors. We think most of these fields are wheat. We have seen Mongolian flour in most of the local stores.

And the last picture is the most important, or course -- at least if you ask Sister Caldwell. It provides notice of the only real 'rest stop' in all of Mongolia. And while it still would not measure up to most U.S. most U.S. reststops, it is far better than the 'three holers' we saw scattered along the way. Those three holers were just off the roadside and the only thing approximating a door on them, was a little half wall built in front of them which managed to mostly hide the occupants. Sort of.

This one was a real rest room, though not in a great state of repair. The above picture hangs on the outside wall of the building and is rather large, easily visible from the highway. No mistaking what this building was for!

We'll post more about our trip later.