We Can Stay!

 Our paperwork finally worked out and we have a sponsor! So, we can stay in Mongolia!

We will be teaching across the street from where we live, at the Chengiss Khan Hotel - about the nicest hotel in the city. We know the manager there fairly well and this should work out quite well for us. They will hit their busy season now and don't want as much teaching hours as they likely would in the winter, so it will be an easier summer than it might have been.

We also hear tell of rumors that they may try to bring in three or four new foreign missionaries again!

Keep your fingers crossed!
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Dust Storm

We have always heard about the terrible winds and dust storms in Mongolia, but had never really seen one here in the capital city (we did see one near Erdenet during a trip there earlier this year). We do see a lot of wind and it does carry dust with it. And it can be a bit irritating to try to walk in. But we usually don't get the really bad ones we had only heard about. That is, until a couple of days ago.

This one was just outside the city as we were driving back into it.

Here are some pictures.

The first one is of the approaching storm. The next two are of us in the middle of it (inside a car, of course - we try not to be out and unprotected when these dust storms come along!).

Needless to say, things have a tendency to get a bit dusty as a result of these storms. We tape our windows around the edges to help keep the dust out, but at least some still finds its' way into the apartment.

So, we sometimes do a lot of dusting!

Some of the people here tell us they don't like spring. Too much wind and dust!
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Ski Resort

Thought it might be interesting to let you see a picture of what is left of the new and only snow skiing resort in Mongolia. This is just outside the capital city of Ulaanbaarar, to the east.

We thought about posting a picture when there was lots of snow, but you couldn't really tell it was there from this distance. Now, all that is left is the compacted ski runs and it stands out really well.

They even have the runs very well lit at night, during the winter months.

We hear it is pretty pricey to ski there! They also have a restaurant at the base of the runs -- or so we are told.
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Garden Time!

Can't believe it but Spring is really here! The forecast for Wednesday is . . . 80 degrees! That's 28 degrees warmer than the forecast for our home town of Magna, Utah! Go figure!

And, it's time to get gardens in here. The Church is once again helping the members here be able to plant vegetables. This year, we are buying lots of seeds, seed potatoes, gardening implements and even materials for small greenhouses for several families in each branch.

This is a picture of the type of greenhouse envisioned. This one was from 2009 and is one that a member built on his own.

And, we have published a book which provides a significant amount of information on how to grow a vegetable garden.

One of the new focuses of the Church here in Mongolia this year, is food production. We want to help these families become self sufficient. We were surprised to learn that some families were able to make some of their produce from 2009, last all winter long! It seems that families who have a small shanty type structure as a home (a step above a ger), dug root cellars below their homes and put a trap door in their living room floor! And they still have some produce from last year that is still in very good condition! Amazing.
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Closing Ceremonies

Just a quick update on our NRT Training (see previous post).

This is the Closing Ceremonies for the second of two very successful training sessions held this week. This was also the larger of the two groups.

We've learned, now, that the training here carries a particular distinction. Though also held in many other nations, it usually only reaches a relatively small portion of the total population of doctors. Here in Mongolia, every Neonatal Specialist in the country attended this training, as far as we know. All of them. 100%

As a result, during his closing remarks, Dr. Preece suggested that if all of the NRT Specialists now do their part in training nurses and assistants, that there is the potential for Mongolia to move from a country troubled with infant mortality, to one of the safest of countries in which to have a baby. Quite a step up, wouldn't you say?

Each of the participants received a bag like the one pictured, full of training materials and medical equipment.

This is where at least some of your donation dollars have been used. Feels good, doesn't it.
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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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