Naadam and Wrestling

Our newest member in Choibalsan, her husband, me, my companion

Visiting with friends and missionaries in Choibalsan

Although Naadam, the national holiday, meant a day off of work for most people, we were still able to get a lot of work done.  Next week, the second Naadam will bring things to a halt as everyone celebrates, but we should still be fine.

One thing funny did happen in relation to Naadam this week.  We were meeting with one of our newer investigator couples, and they were watching the national Naadam wrestling match on TV. They said we could start teaching when the match was over.  But Mongolian wrestling only ends when one man gets the other on the ground.  They stand there grappling each other, starting and stopping and so on, and it can go on forever.  I knew it probably wouldn't last too much longer, but it was getting late and I wanted to be able to show a video about the Restoration for our lesson. So I said a silent prayer that the match would end soon. No sooner had I done so than I looked up and saw one wrestler toss the other to the ground. I don't know whether the Lord ended a national competition to answer my prayer or whether He timed my prayer to work out to my benefit, but either way I'm sure He answered it; and we had a great lesson.  Our investigators are really learning well and coming to Church and trying to change.  The husband is even trying to get a new job so he won't have to work on Sunday!  The Lord knows all things, and He will help this man in the best way, no matter what that ends up being.

This is my last week as a 20-year-old.  In Mongolia, I've been 21 all year, but I'll stick with my American way of counting.  Next week, it'll be 21 for sure. Or 22 if you want to be accurate in Mongolia.

Holidays

We had a baptism on Friday, July 4th!  It was the wife of one of our members here in Choibalsan.  I was able to perform the baptism.  This new sister was very happy to be baptized, but she was too shy to bear her testimony at the service.  That's ok, of course.  The Sunday, however, that she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost was also Fast Sunday. I was fasting for her that she would become a strong member of the Church.  Somewhat to my surprise, she got up and shared her testimony in front of the entire Branch. It was pretty good!  I was glad to see many members expressing their appreciation to her after the meeting. They knew she was shy.

Afterward, I was thinking about it.  I realized that after her baptism, she hadn't the courage; but after receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, she had been able to stand as a witness of Christ in front of a large congregation. I can't say it was a direct cause, but it was an interesting comparison. Either way, bearing testimony strengthens our faith.

This week is Naadam, the national holiday to celebrate Independence.  The biggest celebrations are in the capital, of course, but there will be a couple of different ones here in Choibalsan. We are allowed to watch festivities because we otherwise have a really hard time making appointments during the holiday, but we will always be mindful of an opportunity to fellowship investigators and members.

The other American serving in Choibalsan and I celebrated the 4th of July by going to a nice restaurant in town and ordering steak.  It felt like a holiday, since we would otherwise not spend $9 for just one meal!

Choibalsan is Great

We have had a lot of rain in Choibalsan the last couple of weeks.  Roads aren't all paved and drainage is, well, lacking, so roads become rivers pretty quickly.  One day, we got to an intersection in the Ger Khoroolol (yurt district) and it was water from side to side with no place to pass.  We waited and then flagged down a huge flatbed truck and asked for passage across.  He let us climb in to the truck bed and we rode that way across the pond.  It was pretty good.  Even when the rain lets up, the roads are full of little streams and lots of mud.

We had an appointment on a Saturday with an investigator preparing for baptism, but we couldn't contact them on the phone and the road to their house was horrendously flooded.  So we took the chance, hopped across some dirt mounts and concretes slabs and, sure enough, they were home.  It was a blessing.  We will be having a baptism on the 4th of July!

Missionary work can easily become frustrating, since much of our day depends on whether people keep their appointments with us.  But we have to trust in the Lord.  For example, that Saturday our schedule was tumbling apart about noon, but I didn't let it bother me and I went happily, trusting that the Lord would provide for what really mattered.  And He did. Though some appointments fell through, He brought us another person to teach and also let us get through that flooded street to meet with our investigator.

A focus on the Lord's blessings past and promised--and trust in Him--has helped me to be very happy lately, regardless of circumstances.  During times that could have been boring or tedious or frustrating, I have been just happy, going about the muddy streets with a smile because I know the Lord loves me and that I'm glad to be doing His work.

Teaching on the Army Base is great fun.  The students are motivated and respectful.  For the first couple of weeks, they would stand at attention whenever I called on them.  And they applauded me at the end of a class.  Now that they have realized I don't expect that level of discipline, they aren't standing at attention anymore.  But they still work ten times harder than some of my past students.  I will be sad to leave this teaching job at the end of the summer.  All of my students are soldiers or officers.  They know almost no English except a few memorized words, so they are definitely a beginning class that wants to learn.  The sergeant major gives us a ride home after I teach.  I could get used to that!

I am learning a lot as a counselor in the branch presidency.  I have conducted sacrament meeting a few times.

I take notes when I read the Book of Mormon.  I was reviewing notes from the Book of Ether recently.  Near the end of the first chapter, the Brother of Jared prayed that their language would not be confounded; the Lord blessed him as he asked.  But then when the Lord said He would scatter the nations, Jared and his brother did not pray that they not be scattered; they asked only to know where they would go.  Jared said faithfully, "who knoweth but that He will lead us to a land of Promise?" (v. 38).  They had faith that what the Lord willed, though different than what they had, could be better.  They trusted Him and wanted to be faithful. If we look at how Jared and his brother prayed, we can see patterns of trust, faithfulness and humility.  They never asked to go to a land of promise; they trusted that the Lord's will would be the best for them and asked only for that, deciding to be faithful as well.   It's a good pattern for us today.

Choibalsan!

Once I flew to Choibalsan to conduct some training as a Zone Leader.  I thought it was a fun excursion in a mission where we do not usually get to leave Ulaanbaatar.  Now I find myself serving this summer in Choibalsan!

It is very nice here.  It reminds me of Iowa because it is flat (UB is next to mountains).  You can see forever.  It also reminds me of Florida (although I have never been there) because it has trees.  I haven't seen trees for a long time, and they have planted some lovely lines of trees to beautify the city.  Okay, so they aren't palm trees, but it is just greener here and so I thought of Florida.  It is still Mongolia, of course, since everything is written in Cyrillic script and fresh yogurt is for sell in every store.

Anyway, I am in Choibalsan only for the summer to teach English temporarily.  My school in Ulaanbaatar does not offer classes in the summer, and so I am free to work elsewhere and they needed a teacher here.  This means I also get to be a missionary for this small branch.  It isn't part of a district; it is just under the mission.  So, I am now Second Counselor in the Branch Presidency.  Another missionary is the Branch President and a local member is the First Counselor.  I conducted Sacrament meeting on the 8th!  It was interesting to do that.

We are teaching some people the Gospel, but our presence here is small and we keep a low profile.  The weather here is different than in the capital.  It has gone back and forth between perfect, rainy, and sweaty.  But it's nice.  I like the apartment because I actually have a mattress to sleep on.  In my last apartment, we had box springs but not mattresses.  I slept on some blankets.  So this mattress thing is really nice. We are working on getting a washing machine installed; there was one before, but this apartment hasn't been used for a while and it was removed.

When the mission president called to tell us we were going to Choibalsan, we had just a few days notice to teach our area to some other Elders, baptize an investigator, and get to the airport.  It was a great baptism, though, and we feel our new member will be strong and happy.  He's humble and diligent about coming to Church.  An older gentleman was also baptized. On that same day, another investigator we taught was baptized in her new branch (which we found was outside of our area).

So here I am where mail doesn't reach Elders very often.  Choibalsan is Mongolia's 4th largest city!  Population: about 40,000.  That's Mongolia.  It's great!

Baptism in American Denj Branch (just the street name; it's not an American Branch).
My companion is second from the right.

Elder Sims in Choibalsan, June 2014

School is out!

I'm grateful to live in a family established on the teachings of the prophets.  Going on a mission has shown me what an enormous difference there is between a firm Gospel family and the opposite.

My English class is winding down now.  I just gave the final exams and then graded them.  It took almost 4 hours to do that, which didn't leave much of our P-day.  Oh well.   The school has let out for the summer, so teachers are off, too.  I get to be a full-time missionary all the time!  I look forward to that.

We have an investigator in our area who is doing very well.  He was introduced to the Gospel by a new member of the ward who happens to be the father of one of our missionaries.  Because this mission is comprised mostly of Mongolians, and because the country has a limited number of cities, it is common for missionaries from Ulaanbaatar to serve in this city and even see their family often.

So it is with this new member.  Anyway, because he recently received the Aaronic Priesthood, we are helping him to prepare to baptize his young co-worker who is very excited about the Gospel.  The 25-year-old comes to Church every Sunday and he wants to go on a mission as soon as possible (one year) after he is baptized.  It's great to see how happy he is in the Gospel. And it's great to see how these friends can strengthen each other.

Happy Mother's Day

Elder Sims via Skype, 11 May 2014

Happy Mother's Day.  I'm glad on this day for both my parents who raised me in a Gospel family and did things the Lord's way.  Going on a mission has shown me what an enormous difference there is between a firm Gospel family and the opposite.

I've been reading the Book of Mormon in English again lately, instead of in Mongolian, and I was surprised by how much more understandable Jacob 5 was the most recent time I read it.  I could see all the dispensations falling right into the scriptural narrative.  My understanding drew on lessons and seminary videos of the past, but it just made more sense right away this time.  It shows you how no matter how many time you read the Book of Mormon you can always learn more.

A Typical Week

(Joshua wrote about his day-to-day work for a week (week of April 6-13) to give an idea of what mission work is like in Mongolia.  He sent a handwritten letter because they don't have that much time on a computer to email.  That explains the delay.  From his letter:).....

It was warmer, with the exception of a day of snow, and we were glad to shed our coats and work in suits.  We wear no nametags, though, as my companion and I are both Americans, and we aren't allowed to wear nametags outdoors. I am still zone leader of the Ulaanbaatar East Zone. The other zone leader, not my companion, is a Mongolian I trained a few months ago.  My companion and I serve in the Samsar area, which is pretty small.  Unlike other areas where I have served, we have mostly apartment buildings in this area.

Last Sunday, we had five investigators at Church.  Afterward, we met with a college student.  We taught her the Plan of Salvation and she seems to be understanding it very well.  Then we met with a new member and taught her about how to apply to serve a mission.  The two are friends who both live in Erdenet but are going to school in Ulaanbaatar.

Next we walked across the street to teach a new fellow we met while moving luggage on P-day; he asked us to help him stop drinking. When we met on Sunday, we found him to have great desire and he received our lesson well.

Then we visited a member family that had just come back into town.  We shared a message and learned about a friend of theirs we might visit.  Then we finished a lovely Sunday by visiting an investigator preparing for baptism.  (She's pictured in a post from April 27).  She and her husband fed us Mantuun Buuz, diced meat and onion filling inside a puffy dough dumpling and steamed. Since that was Fast Sunday, it was especially delicious.

On P-day, I taught English for three hours until 2:00 p.m.  I teach at the Institute for International Studies.  Since it was P-day (preparation day), we then got groceries, emailed family, and managed to  do a little shopping.  I was looking for Bibles written in Mongolian script.  I was excited to find one for a good price.

On Tuesday, I taught English another three hours until about noon.  After that, we taught another lesson to the woman preparing for baptism.  She and her husband took us out to lunch, which was very nice.  We had Japanese food (not sushi).  That's not very common for us.  We then taught three more lessons to three different people and took the man who wanted to stop drinking over to the Church's Addiction Recovery Program class.  He received it well, and one of our other investigators was at the class, too.

By now it was 8:30 pm and we headed to the home of an investigator from Poland.  His wife is Mongolian; she had been baptized 15 years ago by our mission president when he was a young missionary, but she had since fallen away.  The man wasn't home then, but we said we would try again later.

On Wednesday, we had Zone training meeting.  I think this is the 8th one I have taught.  We taught about key indicators and building the Church from centers of strength.  After that meeting, at around 11:00, we headed over to teach a new member who is doing very well and learning faithfully.  We taught a new investigator about prophets and then went home for lunch.  We made a tasty pasta and chicken dish, but we had to hurry so my companion could get to his English teaching assignment.  He is a tutor for the children of his sponsor.  Teaching English is probably the strangest and most unique part of this mission; it's quite an experience for all of us.

We taught another lesson to the woman to be baptized, and she and her husband cooked dinner for us.  I'm learning to cook some Mongolian dishes, and I'll try them at home if I can.  It might be hard to find horse meat, I guess, but I suppose I can use beef or mutton instead.  We visited another family but they were unable to meet with us, and it was 9:00 pm anyway, so we went home to plan Thursday.

Thursday, we left at 10:00 to get to my English class.  We usually walk the 30 minutes, but this time we took a taxi in 15 minutes.  Any willing driver can be a taxi; they just pull over and give rides to people on the side of the road.  The agreed upon fare is about 50 cents per kilometer.  Today's 'taxi' driver was a Kazakh man; we had a very interesting conversation, but two American missionaries are not allowed to invite people in public to listen to the Gospel.  All street contacting is also forbidden by the government.  It's strange that being a missionary in Mongolia means we cannot testify in the streets.  But we do get to teach in Church and we have lessons often, and that makes up for it.  I'm glad we do a lot of teaching.

After my English classes, we had a weekly planning session and then went to Church to meet with a new member.  She asked a lot of questions. That's good.  While at the Church, which has a distribution center, we picked up a copy of Book of Mormon Stories [children's book] for an investigator's children.  We then stopped at another home to teach.  The family is learning and listened attentively, but I'm not sure if the kids (aged 11 and 15) were following things well.  I realized I had the children's book in my pack, and so I pulled it out to give to them.  They were really excited; the pictures help with learning such new and foreign concepts.

On Friday, we made some pizza before my English classes at noon.  I like to experiment with pizza here; it's always a little different.  One time, we covered the pizza with Korean kimchi.  I don't think I'll do that again.   After English, we taught one of the investigators we are working with.  [These are all the same people I mentioned from the beginning of the week.  I don't include names for their own privacy.]  This fellow (the one with the drinking problem) likes to meet but isn't sure he believes in God.  We're helping him find out for himself.  We picked up another Book of Mormon Stories for the first family we intended to give it to and then went on a split with the other zone leader and his companion.  We two zone leaders met up with the district leader and his companion to provide some training for them on how to make a good weekly plan.  Then we went back to Church for a baptismal interview for our wonderful investigator.  We then went to teach another investigator who will probably be baptized soon, and we met with the family we wanted to give the children's book to.

With an hour left in our day, we went again to the Polish man's home and found him there!  His wife is a little wary of the missionaries, but she seemed to be fine having us there.  We gave him a pamphlet about the Restoration in Polish and a Polish Book of Mormon.  It's a little hard to teach him because I have to use a mixture of Russian, English, Polish, and Mongolian to convey concepts, but he is showing potential.  He met missionaries once before in Germany.  His wife offered us some soup, which was a pleasant surprise; we are hoping she is feeling less negatively about the Church.  He is going to read while he is traveling for a few weeks.

Saturday we got to watch General Conference in English.  We arranged for splits between native Mongolian speakers and English speakers so everyone could watch in their native tongue.  We had to wait a week to watch because Conference happens in the middle of the night for us, so it just makes things easier to watch the recorded sessions during the day a week after the conference.  I thought all of the talks were great, especially President Erying's talk about priesthood service.

After Church, we were invited by a returned missionary to teach his 90-year-old grandmother.  She's hard of hearing and fairly set in her Buddhist ways.  Many Mongolians are happy to accept Christ but believe that every religion is equally good and even the same. I think we managed to help her understand how Buddhism and Christianity are different and that the way she would worship Christ would not involve the same prayers and rituals she uses as a Buddhist.  Her member children and grandchildren could help her.  I'm not sure how easily she will accept Christ, but she said she was happy to meet with us again.

We visited a less-active member and showed him and his wife how to download conference on their iPad; they were glad to see how easy it was.  On Sunday we watched more conference and enjoyed a missionary lunch of PBJ sandwiches.  My companion and I provided the peanut butter and other missionaries contributed their fair share, as well.  After conference, we taught a nice lesson to some of the investigators mentioned earlier.  When we went to one home, there was a full, skinless, headless goat on the table.  We were grateful he took the time to listen to our lesson before he finished the work of gutting and butchering the animal.  We finished the evening with a farewell fireside for our mission doctor who leaves on Tuesday.

And that was a week in the life of a missionary in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I know the Gospel is true, and I know the Savior lives. In this world of confusion and falsehood, we can trust and rely on the Lord to be our anchor of Righteousness.  He will bless us in this life and when we see Him hereafter, our faith will be vindicated.