Is There a Doctor in the House?

We have had a lot of doctors in our office building this week. This was the week scheduled for NRT (Neo-Natal Resuscitation) training. NRT specialists from all over Mongolia were invited to participate in free training in the process of treating newborns who have difficulty immediately after birth.

Interestingly, all of the NRT doctors here are female, as are the majority of doctors. Medicine is socialized here and the pay is quite low. In fact, low paid teachers make more money here than doctors. It can be a difficult profession to survive in.

It seems that there has been significant difficulty here, with newborns not surviving the birth process. We reported here earlier that a number of doctors themselves sought counseling after losing a few newborns they felt they should have been able to save. That is easier to understand once we learned that those same doctors are all mothers, themselves.

They would perform autopsies on those infants and discover most of them had collapsed lungs - something fairly easily corrected in the States. But they have had neither the training nor the equipment to deal with those situations here.

So, the Church brought in Doctor Cornish (an Area Seventy) and Doctor Preece (that is Dr Preece teaching through a translator in the first photo - Dr./Elder Cornish is sitting with his back to the camera) to provide the needed training, and donated 500 small resuscitators for the locals to use. The NRT Specialists will now return to their hospitals and train others.

As we watched part of that training, it became apparent that one of the first things that needed to be done was to help them unlearn what they had been doing and then learn and practice newer techniques which have been proven to save many such newborns.

You can see the small resuscitators and the specially altered dolls used in the training, sitting on this table.

Comments could be heard along the lines of, ‘This is the best NRT training we have ever had.’ And we couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for those same doctors when they use their new training and save their first newborn because of it.

How thankful we are to be able to witness the wonderful things that are happening here.

Side Note: Sister Caldwell and I had the added privilege to sit with Elder/Dr Cornish for dinner Monday night. What a treat that was! He shared some wonderful Gospel things with us and we felt very fortunate to have that opportunity.
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New Missionaries

Today has been a bit out of the ordinary. Well, at least part of it has.

Five Elders from Mongolia who had been serving in the States and one more who had been serving in Japan, returned here to finish their missions. This is one remedy that our Mission President has come up with to help with the problem of a sudden and unexpected lack of American missionaries (see previous posts). Of course, he didn't manage that all on his own. The Church endorsed the idea and did the actual reassigning.

All six speak excellent English and will be a real asset to the mission and to the Church here.

We have spoken with all of them and they are excellent young men! We are very inpressed. One in particular was special to us; Elder Onon. He does not look Mongolian, at all - light hair, green eyes, fair complexion. And VERY American mannerisms and language, now. But that is not what made him special to us.

It took us part of the day, but we soon learned that his mother and sister were two of the group we went to the Hong Kong Temple with for the first time, in March/April of 2009 (there are no surname's here which would have triggered us to that when we met him)! Not only that, but he had been serving in the Utah Ogden Mission. Sister Caldwell was raised in Ogden and most of her family is still there. In addition to that, his sister just received her mission call to day and she will be serving in . . . drum roll please . . . the Utah Ogden Mission!

More of the Lord's tender mercies!

Elder Onon translated for us tonight as we attended the weekly baptism. He is a young man who is very easy to like!

And we ought to tell you about baptisms here. Those baptized, change out of their wet clothing quickly and then rejoin the congregation back in the Chapel. We all sing songs while we wait for them. Once they have all returned, they bear their testimonies. Yes, brand new members stand in front of the congregation and tell us they know the Gospel is true. And the Chapel was filled to capacity! And somehow, their testimonies are extra special.

Don't you wish you could be here sometimes?!
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The Hills Are Alive . . .

Last Saturday, April 17, 2010, the Church held a choir festival in Mongolia. It was really something!

The idea was ‘hatched’ about four or five months ago by President Andersen. But no one really had any idea it would become what it did when time came to perform.
Most anticipated small choirs from each branch (maybe 15 to 20 tops). But when festival time arrived, a total of 650 choir members performed from 18 branches! That’s an average of slightly more than 36 in each choir! I never saw a ward choir that large in our home stake in Utah. One Branch choir had 50 members in it!

Oh, did you noticed in the pictures the matching dress? That was something else not anticipated and certainly not requested. The members here really got into this whole idea of a choir festival!

The mission rented the large ‘pink’ theater just south of Sukhbaatar Square - for those of you who have been here, it is the one next to the Irish Pub and where the National Academy of Dance performs. A dress rehearsal was held beginning at 11:00 am that morning, closely followed by the official performance at 1:00 (ok, they didn’t actually start ‘til 1:30).

But the performance was nearly flawless! And the singing was actually very, very good (something else we don’t usually see in our Ward choirs back home!).

And the theater seating was nearly full to capacity as the 1:00 performance started. All three levels of seats (the main floor and two balcony's!

Elder and Sister Lasson (mostly Sister Lasson, really – it was her assignment) organized and orchestrated the festival – no small matter, in view of the much larger than anticipated participation. She had to continually adjust for larger than planned choir sizes.

The finale consisted of two numbers by all choirs combined (a feat in and of itself, with choir members filling the stage and standing in the isles). They sang “The Spirit of God” and “The Mongolian National Anthem”. It was quite moving, as you might be able to guess.

Oh, and we must mention one choir in particular. A very recently opened missionary area called Bulgan has just five Church members. But they participated with a 20 member choir! Yup, that means five members and 15 investigators!

All of the senior couples helped 'direct traffic', helped with the choirs between numbers and assisted in other ways where we could. But the really hard work had already been done.

Now, remember. This is an all Mongolian choir in this video. Few, if any, of them can speak more than a dozen or so words of English. This song is also not in the limited hymn book they have available here. But they learned it and are singing it -- in English. Most of the numbers were done in Mongolian but a couple of choirs did sing one song in English.

One last thing. The whole performance was recorded using the high quality recording equipment available at the theater. And the mission has now decided that it would be a good idea to make copies available on CD to every member home. You see, it would be the first and only church music available to these good members in their own language. At least most of it is in their own language! Some thing else we sort of take for granted in the States.

This was really a special event and one not soon to be forgotten.

Kudos to the choirs, the Lassons and others for a job well done!
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Our Homeless Shelter

There have been a number of difficulties which we have been reporting on here in our blog. Well, we have also had some difficulties with the homeless shelter in Nalaikh -- the one for which we have asked to serve as project managers for a Humanitarian Project approved by the Church to help them. It seems there have developed some significant conflicts between the owner and the manager there. So, we have had to back away from that project, hoping that it will soon be resolved, allowing us to continue our relationship with them.

But all is not lost. Our initial contact and association with a number of those living there, was not lost entirely. A few of them continued to come to Church services on Sunday and wanted the missionary lessons, too.

Last Friday night, one of the 21 one baptisms we spoke of in our last post, was one of our new friends from the shelter -- Naraanbaatar.

Naraanbaatar (the one in the middle in this picture) was one of the first people we met during our initial visits there. He speaks a bit of English and we found that to be useful on more than one of our visits there. He is a good guy and we were thrilled to see him accept the Gospel and to watch the change that we can see in him.

Not only that, but it was his birthday Sunday. So, we decided to make a cake and have a little birthday party for him after Sacrament Meetings (you know, the only meeting we are currently allowed to have on Sunday in many buildings). He was thrilled!

We hope we will yet have the opportunity to see that same change in others at the shelter. The Gospel can provide so much hope for people -- especially those who have had so much reason to loose hope during a tough time in their lives.
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The Saga Continues

We have managed to get ourselves into another pickle!

We have learned that Mongolia is requiring things a bit differently than we thought. It has to do with church buildings.

For most churches, every congregation and building tends to be a separate entity without a lot of correlation between them. So, Mongolia requires registration for each individual church unit. Weeellll, we thought that registering our main office building would cover all of our units organized under the jurisdiction of that particular office. After all, we are not separate units but are very much part of a single organization, all teaching the same, etc. So we were covered, right?

Not so much!

So, now we find ourselves in bad straights. We have been told that we can no longer use those other buildings until they are properly registered. The trouble is, the government committee having that responsibility will not meet again to consider registrations until June! Ouch!

They have relented (again) and are allowing us to hold Sacrament meetings on Sunday, but that is all. No full block, no seminary, no mutual, no baptism, etc. Bummer!

But, we are doing the best we can. Most baptisms will be held in the one main office building (the only building properly registered - the Bayanzurkh Building for those of you are are familiar with the mission). Alternative sites are being sought for Seminary. That's an important one. And the rest . . . . we'll let you know as we find alternatives!

And tonight is Friday night so we held the weekly baptisms all in this one building. All 21 of them! At least all except those in the countryside. Their buildings are registered and in good shape, so they are ok.

So, the work goes on. It will be interesting to look back at this in a few years and see what the perspective is. Probably a bit different than the one folks might be inclined to have right now.
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Conference Weekend

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For most of Asia, and more specifically, for us here in Mongolia, this was General Conference weekend. It is available to us live via the Internet or satellite, but the time difference is simply too great for us to be able to watch it then. So, we generally watch it on the weekend following the actual conference.

It is translated into Mongolian (and many other languages, of course) as it happens and is received over the satellite system, recorded and then burned to DVD. The English version is also recorded and stored on DVD at the same time.

Then, the senior couple missionaries all join together in President and Sister Andersen's apartment (5th or top floor of the Church building here) to share in the experience as we watch each session. Our time table (as they refer to schedules here) is, however, a bit different. Saturday's first session begins at the traditional 10:00 am. But the second session is begun at 1:00 pm, closely followed by the Priesthood session at 3:15 pm.

And, as the brethren all watch the Priesthood Session, the sister's are busily making homemade cinnamon rolls for all to enjoy at the end of the session! Yum!! (Sister Caldwell out did herself this time!)

Sunday's sessions are held similarly with the first session at 10:00 am and the last session at 1:00 pm. The seniors all bring potluck stuff on Sunday and we have lunch together.

The young missionaries and other members of the Church listen to Conference downstairs in the Chapel, at the same time. The young American Missionaries, however, do get to hear it in their native language in another room in the building.

And, as always seems to be the case, Conference was uplifting, enjoyable and very edifying. We try to single out favorite speakers, but it is difficult. So very much of good instruction and counsel is given that it is sometimes difficult to absorb it all. So, it is wonderful to be able to download the sessions and watch them again. Including the Priesthood session, which began being included in the downloads at about the time we entered the mission field.

And then we can also read and study them even more thoroughly in the Liahona (we don't get the Ensign here much).

Actually, the sessions are now available within a few hours after each session since the launching of the Church's new beta website (beta.lds.org). That means that anyone, anywhere in the world, can see recordings of conference sessions within hours of their occurrence. What a marvelous thing the internet can be.

We marvel at the organization and operation of the Church. There is not another worldwide organization that we are aware of, that is able to maintain the consistency of instruction and the unity of operation as does the Church. We have come half way around the world and find the Church the same here as in Utah, even despite the relatively young age of the Church and it's members here. Such adds testimony and validity to our assertion of who is at the head of this Church and as to whose Church it is.

Some things we remember from Conference sessions, include (of course) President Monsons' remarks about how he and Sister Monson met and the development of their relationship. Funny! Oh, and how many of you noticed his comment about Mongolia in those same opening remarks? We also liked President Uchtdorfs' counsel that without love and compassion, we are like clouds without rain or trees without root. Simple and simply profound.

There were many others, like Elder Packers' and Elder Morinos' talks. And then there was Elder Hales and and Elder Hollands talks and . . . well, you get the picture. Maybe we'll share more of what we liked later.
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